TRL and the Crazy Group
by LunarMalfoyRiddle
Summary: Severus gets a letter and 7 books one day from a mysterious TRL. Now he has to gather 12 people he never thought he'd see in the same room together and read the story of Harry Potter.
1. Chapter 1

I don't own Harry Potter or any of JKR's characters or material

Severus stared down at the note that had appeared on his desk along with a stack of 7 books. It didn't say much just to read the books as a group with everyone on the list below and not to trust the Weasleys (minus Fred, George, and Ginny), Hermione, or Dumbledore. Well that part was easy, he only trusted one person and it sure as hell wasn't any of them. Sighing he sent a quick note to everyone on the list saying to come to Spinners End for an emergency meeting and the floo password. Gathering the note and books he headed to the library where everyone would be arriving.

Just as he stepped in the floo flared to life and out tumbled person after person. Once everyone was there he held up a hand to quiet everyone down.

"Alright, I know you are all wondering what you are doing here so let me explain. You are all here for a reason. Today I received a letter, it appeared on my desk with these books." He started, pointing at the books. "This note said it was important for us all to read these books together. It also said not to trust any Weasleys not present, Granger or Dumbledore."

"Professor, if I may, I think you'll find no one here trusts any of them." Harry said. I also recommend a first name rule since we will be reading and spending this time together."

"Sounds good Po-Harry. Let's start, when I call your name say here and find a place to sit, then we'll begin. Potter, Harry."

"Here sir."

"Weasley, Fred, George, Ginny"

"Here"

"Lovegood, Luna"

"Here"

"Malfoy, Lucius, Narcissa, Draco"

"Present"

"Black, Sirius"

"Yep"

"Lupin, Remus"

"Here"

"Lestrange, Bellatrix"

"Here"

"Riddle, Tom"

Harry and Ginny both gasped, knowing just who Tom Riddle was and where frantically looking around. He stepped forward from the shadows he was hiding in and Harry's jaw dropped. Standing next to him was Tom Riddle from the diary, only a few years older. The only sign he was the dark lord was the red eyes staring back at him. Ever Gryffindor in the room plus Luna followed Harry into a bow.

Harry spoke in a soft but strong voice, "Sir if you'll have us we would like to join your ranks." To say the Slytherin half of the company was shocked would be an understatement. "If these books are what I believe they are you will understand."

"Then we shall discuss it after the first book." Tom replied wondering what caused this.

"Lets start then," Severus said "Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone." Harry groaned and dropped his head on the table. "Who wants to read first?"

Looking at Harry and getting a nod George jumped up. "I will."


	2. Chapter 2

Harry looked at his friends and they all moved to sit with Harry, Ginny and Luna in the very center on one of the couches while Sirius took a chair on the left and Remus took one to the right, Fred and George took up seats on the floor in front of the couch. Severus sat on a couch with Tom and Lucius, Bellatrix and Narcissa sat on the loveseat and Draco spread out on a beanbag chair he conjured.

George cleared his throat dramatically and started.

"This chapter is called THE BOY WHO LIVED." Harry groaned.

_Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much._

"Your very welcome." Luna said as Ginny giggled.

_They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense. Mr. Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills._

Harry quickly explained drills and power tools to the purebloods.

_He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large mustache. Mrs. Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbors. The Dursleys had a small son called Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere._

"These people sound just awful." Narcissa exclaimed.

_The Dursleys had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret, and their greatest fear was that somebody would discover it. They didn't think they could bear it if anyone found out about the Potters._

"I think I know where this is going. Harry tell me I'm wrong?" Severus said.

"I can't because you're probably right." He answered.

_Mrs. Potter was Mrs. Dursley's sister, but they hadn't met for several years; in fact, Mrs. Dursley pretended she didn't have a sister, because her sister and her good-for-nothing husband were as unDursleyish as it was possible to be. The Dursleys shuddered to think what the neighbors would say if the Potters arrived in the street. The Dursleys knew that the Potters had a small son, too, but they had never even seen him. This boy was another good reason for keeping the Potters away; they didn't want Dudley mixing with a child like that._

Suddenly the room was filled with outraged cries of "Like what?!" and "Damn muggles".

_When Mr. and Mrs. Dursley woke up on the dull, gray Tuesday our story starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country. None of them noticed a large, tawny owl flutter past the window._

_At half past eight, Mr. Dursley picked up his briefcase, pecked Mrs. Dursley on the cheek, and tried to kiss Dudley good-bye but missed, because Dudley was now having a tantrum and throwing his cereal at the walls. "Little tyke," chortled Mr. Dursley as he left the house._

"Little my arse." Harry muttered.

_He got into his car and backed out of number four's drive. It was on the corner of the street that he noticed the first sign of something peculiar — a cat reading a map._

"McGonagall!" Yelled Fred and Sirius.

_For a second, Mr. Dursley didn't realize what he had seen — then he jerked his head around to look again. There was a tabby cat standing on the corner of Privet Drive, but there wasn't a map in sight. What could he have been thinking of? It must have been a trick of the light. Mr. Dursley blinked and stared at the cat. It stared back. As Mr. Dursley drove around the corner and up the road, he watched the cat in his mirror. It was now reading the sign that said Privet Drive — no, __looking __at the sign; cats couldn't read maps __or __signs. Mr. Dursley gave himself a little shake and put the cat out of his mind. As he drove toward town he thought of nothing except a large order of drills he was hoping to get that day. But on the edge of town, drills were driven out of his mind by something else. As he sat in the usual morning traffic jam, he couldn't help noticing that there seemed to be a lot of strangely dressed people about, People in cloaks._

"Hey what's wrong with cloaks?" Draco asked.

"Muggles don't wear cloaks. The wizarding world is behind in fashion." Sirius explained.

"I prefer the cloaks, much more dramatic." Harry stated. Everyone looked at him oddly.

_Mr. Dursley couldn't bear people who dressed in funny clothes the getups you saw on young people! He supposed this was some stupid new fashion. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and his eyes fell on a huddle of these weirdos standing quite close by. They were whispering excitedly together. Mr. Dursley was enraged to see that a couple of them weren't young at all; why, that man had to be older than he was, and wearing an emerald-green cloak!_

"Cough-Slytherin-Cough" Fred said while receiving glares from the Slytherins present.

_The nerve of him! But then it struck Mr. Dursley that this was probably some silly stunt — these people were obviously collecting for something...yes that would be it. The traffic moved on and a few minutes later, Mr. Dursley arrived in the Grunnings parking lot, his mind back on drills._

_Mr. Dursley always sat with his back to the window in his office on the ninth floor. If he hadn't, he might have found it harder to concentrate on drills that morning. __He __didn't see the owls swooping past in broad daylight, though people down in the street did; they pointed and gazed open-mouthed as owl after owl sped overhead. Most of them had never seen an owl even at nighttime._

Sirius had to explain that muggles don't use owls and then the muggle mailing system.

_Mr. Dursley, however, had a perfectly normal, owl-free morning. He yelled at five different people. He made several important telephone calls and shouted a bit more._

"He sure does like to yell a lot." Tom remarked and harry snorted.

_He was in a very good mood until lunchtime, when he thought he'd stretch his legs and walk across the road to buy himself a bun from the bakery. He'd forgotten all about the people in cloaks until he passed a group of them next to the baker's. He eyed them angrily as he passed. He didn't know why, but they made him uneasy. This bunch were whispering excitedly, too, and he couldn't see a single collecting tin. It was on his way back past them, clutching a large doughnut in a bag, that he caught a few words of what they were saying._

"_The Potters, that's right, that's what I heard —"_

"— _yes, their son, Harry —"_

"And so it begins." Harry groaned as Luna rubbed his back. "Thanks Moonbeam."

"Your welcome Oniichan." Everyone looked at them confused and Harry shrugged his shoulders.

"I adopted Luna as my sister at the beginning of term. George keep reading" George turned back to the book while the Slytherins looked oddly at the group.

_Mr. Dursley stopped dead. Fear flooded him. He looked back at the whisperers as if he wanted to say something to them, but thought better of it. He dashed back across the road, hurried up to his office, snapped at his secretary not to disturb him, seized his telephone, and had almost finished dialing his home number when he changed his mind. He put the receiver back down and stroked his mustache, thinking...no, he was being stupid. Potter wasn't such an unusual name. He was sure there were lots of people called Potter who had a son called Harry. Come to think of it, he wasn't even sure his nephew __was __called Harry. He'd never even seen the boy. It might have been Harvey, or Harold. _

_There was no point in worrying Mrs. Dursley; she always got so upset at any mention of her sister. He didn't blame her — if __he'd __had a sister like that . . . but all the same, those people in cloaks . . . He found it a lot harder to concentrate on drills that afternoon and when he left the building at five o'clock, he was still so worried that he walked straight into someone just outside the door._

"_Sorry," he grunted, as the tiny old man stumbled and almost fell. It was a few seconds before Mr. Dursley realized that the man was wearing a violet cloak. He didn't seem at all upset at being almost knocked to the ground. On the contrary, his face split into a wide smile and he said in a squeaky voice that made passersby stare, "Don't be sorry, my dear sir, for nothing could upset me today! Rejoice, for You-Know-Who has gone at last! Even Muggles like yourself should be celebrating, this happy, happy day!" And the old man hugged Mr. Dursley around the middle and walked off. _

"For the love of Merlin, it's a wonder the muggles don't know about us yet with idiot wizards like that walking around." Severus said dryly. All of them nodded their heads in agreement.

_Mr. Dursley stood rooted to the spot. He had been hugged by a complete stranger. He also thought he had been called a Muggle, whatever that was. He was rattled. He hurried to his car and set off for home, hoping he was imagining things, which he had never hoped before, because he didn't approve of imagination. As he pulled into the driveway of number four, the first thing he saw — and it didn't improve his mood — was the tabby cat he'd spotted that morning. It was now sitting on his garden wall. He was sure it was the same one; it had the same markings around its eyes. _

"_Shoo!" said Mr. Dursley loudly. The cat didn't move. It_

_just gave him a stern look._

Everyone laughed. "Definitely Minerva." Remus chuckled.

Was this normal cat behavior? Mr. Dursley wondered. Trying to pull himself together, he let himself into the house. He was still determined not to mention anything to his wife. Mrs. Dursley had had a nice, normal day. She told him over dinner all about Mrs. Next Door's problems with her daughter and how Dudley had learned a new word ("Won't!"). Mr. Dursley tried to act normally. When Dudley had been put to bed, he went into the living room in time to catch the last report on the evening news. (skip to Dumbledore's entrance)

_In fact, it was nearly midnight before the cat moved at all. A man appeared on the corner the cat had been watching, appeared so suddenly and silently you'd have thought he'd just popped out of the ground. The cat's tail twitched and its eyes narrowed. Nothing like this man had ever been seen on Privet Drive. He was tall, thin, and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak that swept the ground, and high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright, and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles and his nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice. This man's name was Albus Dumbledore._

"I knew it. Stupid old goat." Harry mumbled miserably. Draco and Severus watched Harry, neither of them liked the feeling they were getting so far and it was only the first chapter.

"We're never going to finish this chapter if we keep remarking so let's do try to refrain. I for one am starving."

_Albus Dumbledore didn't seem to realize that he had just arrived in a street where everything from his name to his boots was unwelcome. He was busy rummaging in his cloak, looking for something. But he did seem to realize he was being watched, because he looked up suddenly at the cat, which was still staring at him from the other end of the street. For some reason, the sight of the cat seemed to amuse him. He chuckled and muttered, "I should have known." He found what he was looking for in his inside pocket. It seemed to be a silver cigarette lighter. He flicked it open, held it up in the air, and clicked it. The nearest street lamp went out with a little pop. He clicked it again — the next lamp flickered into darkness._

_Twelve times he clicked the Put-Outer, until the only lights left on the whole street were two tiny pinpricks in the distance, which were the eyes of the cat watching him. If anyone looked out of their window now, even beady-eyed Mrs. Dursley, they wouldn't be able to see anything that was happening down on the pavement. Dumbledore slipped the Put-Outer back inside his cloak and set off down the street toward number four, where he sat down on the wall next to the cat. He didn't look at it, but after a moment he spoke to it. _

"_Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall."_

_He turned to smile at the tabby, but it had gone. Instead he was smiling at a rather severe-looking woman who was wearing square glasses exactly the shape of the markings the cat had had around its eyes. She, too, was wearing a cloak, an emerald one. Her black hair was drawn into a tight bun. She looked distinctly ruffled._

"_How did you know it was me?" she asked._

"_My dear Professor, I've never seen a cat sit so stiffly."_

"_You'd be stiff if you'd been sitting on a brick wall all day," said Professor McGonagall._

"_All day? When you could have been celebrating? I must have passed a dozen feasts and parties on my way here." Professor McGonagall sniffed angrily._

"_Oh yes, everyone's celebrating, all right," she said impatiently._

"_You'd think they'd be a bit more careful, but no — even the Muggles have noticed something's going on. It was on their news." She jerked her head back at the Dursleys' dark living-room window. "I heard it. Flocks of owls...shooting stars…Well, they're not completely stupid. They were bound to notice something. Shooting stars down in Kent — I'll bet that was Dedalus Diggle. He never had much sense."_

"_You can't blame them," said Dumbledore gently. "We've had precious little to celebrate for eleven years."_

"_I know that," said Professor McGonagall irritably. "But that's no reason to lose our heads. People are being downright careless, out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in Muggle clothes, swapping rumors." She threw a sharp, sideways glance at Dumbledore here, as though hoping he was going to tell her something, but he didn't, so she went on. "A fine thing it would be if, on the very day You- Know-Who seems to have disappeared at last, the Muggles found out about us all. I suppose he really __has __gone, Dumbledore?"_

"_It certainly seems so," said Dumbledore. "We have much to be thankful for. Would you care for a lemon drop?" _

_ Everyone groaned at the mention of lemon drops._

"_A __what__?"_

"_A lemon drop. They're a kind of Muggle sweet I'm rather_

_fond of."_

"_No, thank you," said Professor McGonagall coldly, as though she didn't think this was the moment for lemon drops. "As I say, even if You-Know-Who __has __gone —"_

"_My dear Professor, surely a sensible person like yourself can call him by his name? All this 'You-Know-Who' nonsense — for eleven years I have been trying to persuade people to call him by his proper name: __Voldemort.__" Professor McGonagall flinched, but Dumbledore, who was unsticking two lemon drops, seemed not to notice._

"_It all gets so confusing if we keep saying 'You-Know-Who.' I have never seen any reason to be frightened of saying Voldemort's name."_

"_I know you haven't," said Professor McGonagall, sounding half exasperated, half admiring. "But you're different. Everyone knows you're the only one You-Know- oh, all right, __Voldemort, __was frightened of."_

"Excuse me?" Tom snorted. "Is that what people really think?"

"Yea, you can thank Dumbledore for that one." Severus answered.

"You flatter me," said Dumbledore calmly. "Voldemort had powers I will never have."

"Only because you're too — well — _noble _to use them."

"_It's lucky it's dark. I haven't blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new earmuffs."_

Several "EWWWWW!"s followed that.

_Professor McGonagall shot a sharp look at Dumbledore and_

_said, "The owls are nothing next to the __rumors __that are flying_

_around. You know what everyone's saying? About why he's disappeared? About what finally stopped him?"_

_It seemed that Professor McGonagall had reached the point she was most anxious to discuss, the real reason she had been waiting on a cold, hard wall all day, for neither as a cat nor as a woman had she fixed Dumbledore with such a piercing stare as she did now. It was plain that whatever "everyone" was saying, she was not going to believe it until Dumbledore told her it was true. Dumbledore, however, was choosing another lemon drop and did not answer._

"_What they're __saying,__" she pressed on, "is that last night Voldemort turned up in Godric's Hollow. He went to find the Potters. The rumor is that Lily and James Potter are — are — that they're — __dead.__" Dumbledore bowed his head. Professor McGonagall gasped._

"_Lily and James...I can't believe it...I didn't want to believe it...Oh, Albus..."_

Tom ducked his head and blushed as everyone looked at him.

_Dumbledore reached out and patted her on the shoulder. "I_

_know...I know..." he said heavily._

_Professor McGonagall's voice trembled as she went on. "That's not all. They're saying he tried to kill the Potters' son, Harry. But — he couldn't. He couldn't kill that little boy. No one knows why, or how, but they're saying that when he couldn't kill Harry Potter, Voldemort's power somehow broke — and that's why he's gone." Dumbledore nodded glumly._

"_It's — it's __true__?" faltered Professor McGonagall. "After all he's done...all the people he's killed...he couldn't kill a little boy? It's just astounding...of all the things to stop him...but how in the name of heaven did Harry survive?"_

"_We can only guess," said Dumbledore. "We may never know." (skip to when they leave Harry)_

"_I've come to bring Harry to his aunt and uncle. They're the only family he has left now."_

"_You don't mean—you __can't __mean the people who live __here__?"_

_cried Professor McGonagall, jumping to her feet and pointing at_

_number four. "Dumbledore—you can't. I've been watching them_

_all day. You couldn't find two people who are less like us. And_

_they've got this son—I saw him kicking his mother all the way up the street, screaming for sweets. Harry Potter come and live here!"_

"_It's the best place for him," said Dumbledore firmly. "His aunt and uncle will be able to explain everything to him when he's older. I've written them a letter."_

Harry snorted laughed, a little insanely causing everyone to look at him like he was crazy.

"A letter?" repeated Professor McGonagall faintly, sitting back

down on the wall. "Really, Dumbledore, you think you can explain

all this in a letter? These people will never understand him! He'll be famous—a legend—I wouldn't be surprised if today was known as Harry Potter Day. There will be books written

about Harry—every child in our world will know his name!"

Harry looked horrified for a moment and turned to Remus. "There isn't a Harry Potter day is there?"

"no Harry" Remus giggled as harry sighed in relief.

"_Exactly," said Dumbledore_

_Dumbledore stepped over the low garden wall and walked to the front door. He laid Harry gently on the doorstep, took a letter out of his cloak, tucked it inside Harry's blankets, and then came back. Dumbledore turned and walked back down the street. On the corner he stopped and took out the silver Put-Outer. He clicked it once and twelve balls of light sped back to their street lamps so that Privet Drive glowed suddenly orange and he could make out a tabby cat slinking around the corner at the other end of the street. He could just see the bundle of blankets on the step of number four._

"_Good luck, Harry," he murmured. He turned on his heel and with a swish of his cloak, he was gone._

"He left you on a doorstep at night?!" Sirius, Tom and Severus yelled jumping to their feet.

"Keep reading George." Harry said in a tight voice.

_A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours' time by Mrs. Dursley's scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley...He couldn't know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices:_

"_To Harry Potter—the boy who lived!"_

"That's the end." George said quietly as the rest of the room sat in silence a moment. Suddenly Harry stood up and turned to Severus.

"Where is your kitchen?" He asked and a bewildered Severus told him. "Alright who here other than Luna can cook?" Surprisingly only Draco raised his hand. "Okay wasn't expected that." Harry mumbled and pulled Draco and Luna to the kitchen by their hands.

"Ooo Harry's cooking; you guys are in for a good dinner tonight." Ginny excitedly explained. True to her word an hour later they were all seated around the dinner room table eating a meal better than the Hogwarts house elves could make.

"Okay I think one more chapter then we can all get some sleep and continue tomorrow." Severus said after they had moved back into the library. "Who wants to read next?"

"I will." Harry said.


	3. Chapter 3

Harry started giggling, startling most of the room.

"_This chapter is called THE VANISHING GLASS_."

_Nearly ten years had passed since the Dursleys had woken up to find their nephew on the front step, but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all._

"That's to bad, really." Fred said and Harry nodded.

_The sun rose on the same tidy front gardens and lit up the brass number four on the Dursleys' front door; it crept into their living room, which was almost exactly the same as it had been on the night when Mr. Dursley had seen that fateful news report about the owls. Only the photographs on the mantelpiece really showed how much time had passed. Ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink beach ball wearing different-colored bonnets_

All the teens burst out laughing while the adults all covered their smiles behind their hands.

_but Dudley Dursley was no longer a baby, and now the photographs showed a large blond boy riding his first bicycle, on a carousel at the fair, playing a computer game with his father, being hugged and kissed by his mother. The room held no sign at all that another boy lived in the house, too._

Severus looked towards Harry, who was starting to turn pink, not liking where this was going. Draco was frowning, everyone always said Harry was spoiled but from the sounds of it that was far from the truth.

_Yet Harry Potter was still there, asleep at the moment, but not for long. His Aunt Petunia was awake and it was her shrill voice that made the first noise of the day._

"_Up! Get up! Now!"_

_Harry woke with a start. His aunt rapped on the door again._

"_Up!" she screeched. Harry heard her walking toward the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the stove. He rolled onto his back and tried to remember the dream he had been having. It had been a good one. There had been a flying motorcycle in it._

Sirius smiled at Harry. "That wasn't a dream."

"Well I know that now."

_He had a funny feeling he'd had the same dream before. His aunt was back outside the door._

"_Are you up yet?" she demanded._

"_Nearly," said Harry._

"_Well, get a move on, I want you to look after the bacon. And don't you dare let it burn, I want everything perfect on Duddy's birthday." Harry groaned._

"_What did you say?" his aunt snapped through the door._

"_Nothing, nothing..." Dudley's birthday — how could he have forgotten? Harry got slowly out of bed and started looking for socks. He found a pair under his bed and, after pulling a spider off one of them, put them on. Harry was used to spiders, because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where he slept. _

Suddenly Tom, Severus, Lucius, Bellatrix and Sirius were on their feet and ready to go hunt down the Dursleys. Luna was the first to react, surprisingly and grabbed Sirius' arm and trying to calm him down. Narcissa had wrapped her arms around Lucius, Remus had Severus by the shoulder trying to talk sense into him, the twins where holding onto Bellatrix's arms as she struggled to get free, and most surprising of all for Harry was Ginny, who was standing close to Tom whispering fast in his ear. Draco had moved over to Harry when he saw him shaking at everyone's raised voices.

Finally everyone sat down and harry continued reading, missing the looks that passed between Tom, Lucius, Severus and Bellatrix.

_When he was dressed he went down the hall into the kitchen. The table was almost hidden beneath all Dudley's birthday presents. It looked as though Dudley had gotten the new computer he wanted, not to mention the second television_

Harry and Sirius explained computers and television.

_and the racing bike. Exactly why Dudley wanted a racing bike was a mystery to Harry, as Dudley was very fat and hated exercise—unless of course it involved punching somebody. Dudley's favorite punching bag was Harry, _

This caused several hollers of outrage.

_but he couldn't often catch him. Harry didn't look it, but he was very fast._

"Thank Merlin for that." Draco whispered and Harry smiled at him.

_Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard, but Harry had always been small and skinny for his age. He looked even smaller and skinnier than he really was because all he had to wear were old clothes of Dudley's, and Dudley was about four times bigger than he was. Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair, and bright green eyes. He wore round glasses held together with a lot of Scotch tape because of all the times Dudley had punched him on the nose._

Draco pressed his hand against Harry's and Harry lightly gripped his hand back.

_The only thing Harry liked about his own appearance was a very thin scar on his forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning. _

"You liked your scar?" Draco asked incredulously. Harry shrugged. "I didn't know what it meant then." That left most everyone confused.

_He had had it as long as he could remember, and the first question he could ever remember asking his Aunt Petunia was how he had gotten it._

"_In the car crash when your parents died," she had said. "And don't ask questions."_

Harry flinched as several people screamed in outrage about the "Stupid, filthy muggles" and "Torturing the idiots to the brink of insanity." Draco slipped an arm around Harry's waist and Harry thankfully lent into him.

_Don't ask questions __— that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys._

_Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as Harry was turning over the bacon._

"_Comb your hair!" he barked, by way of a morning greeting._

"Some greeting." Fred snorted.

_About once a week, Uncle Vernon looked over the top of his newspaper and shouted that Harry needed a haircut. Harry must_

_have had more haircuts than the rest of the boys in his class put together, but it made no difference, his hair simply grew that way-all over the place._

"That's the Potter genes at work Harry. James' hair was the same way." Sirius laughed as Remus smiled.

_Harry was frying eggs by the time Dudley arrived in the kitchen with his mother. Dudley looked a lot like Uncle Vernon. He had a large pink face, not much neck, small, watery blue eyes, and thick blond hair that lay smoothly on his thick, fat head. Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel-Harry often said that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig._

The whole room broke into laughter at that, dignity be damned.

_Harry put the plates of egg and bacon on the table, which was difficult as there wasn't much room. Dudley, meanwhile, was counting his presents. His face fell._

"_Thirty-six," he said, looking up at his mother and father._

"_That's two less than last year."_

"What a terrible child." Narcissa muttered and everyone nodded in agreement.

"_Darling, you haven't counted Auntie Marge's present, see, it's here under this big one from Mommy and Daddy."_

"_All right, thirty-seven then," said Dudley, going red in the face. Harry, who could see a huge Dudley tantrum coming on, began wolfing down his bacon as fast as possible in case Dudley turned the table over._

_Aunt Petunia obviously scented danger, too, because she said quickly, "And we'll buy you another __two __presents while we're out today. How's that, popkin? __Two __more presents. Is that all right?"_

_Dudley thought for a moment. It looked like hard work. Finally he said slowly, "So I'll have thirty...thirty..."_

"Dear Merlin, he can't even count." Snape said, glaring at the book.

"_Thirty-nine, sweetums," said Aunt Petunia._

"_Oh." Dudley sat down heavily and grabbed the nearest parcel._

"_All right then."_

_Uncle Vernon chuckled._

"_Little tyke wants his money's worth, just like his father. 'Atta boy, Dudley!" He ruffled Dudley's hair._

_At that moment the telephone rang and Aunt Petunia went to answer it while Harry and Uncle Vernon watched Dudley unwrap the racing bike, a video camera, a remote control airplane, sixteen new computer games, and a VCR. _

Sirius explained the muggle devices this time as it was obvious Harry was getting tired.

_He was ripping the paper off a gold wristwatch when Aunt Petunia came back from the telephone looking both angry and worried._

"_Bad news, Vernon," she said. "Mrs. Figg's broke her leg. She can't take him." She jerked her head in Harry's direction._

"Arabella Figg, the cat lady?" Remus asked.

"Yea."

_Dudley's mouth fell open in horror, but Harry's heart gave a leap. Every year on Dudley's birthday, his parents took him and a friend out for the day, to adventure parks, hamburger restaurants, or the movies. Every year, Harry was left behind with Mrs. Figg, a mad old lady who lived two streets away. Harry hated it there. The whole house smelled of cabbage and Mrs. Figg made him look at photographs of all the cats she'd ever owned._

Ginny giggled.

"_Now what?" said Aunt Petunia, looking furiously at Harry as though he'd planned this. Harry knew he ought to feel sorry that_

_Mrs. Figg had broken her leg, but it wasn't easy when he reminded himself it would be a whole year before he had to look at Tibbies, Snowy, Mr. Paws, and Tufty again._

"_We could phone Marge," Uncle Vernon suggested._

"_Don't be silly, Vernon, she hates the boy."_

_The Dursleys often spoke about Harry like this, as though he wasn't there — or rather, as though he was something very nasty that couldn't understand them, like a slug._

"_What about what's-her-name, your friend — Yvonne?"_

"_On vacation in Majorca," snapped Aunt Petunia._

"_You could just leave me here," Harry put in hopefully (he'd be able to watch what he wanted on television for a change and maybe even have a go on Dudley's computer)._

_Aunt Petunia looked as though she'd just swallowed a lemon._

"_And come back and find the house in ruins?" she snarled._

"_I won't blow up the house," said Harry, but they weren't listening._

"_I suppose we could take him to the zoo," said Aunt Petunia slowly, "...and leave him in the car..."_

Tom sneered at the book. "He isn't an animal."

"_That car's new; he's not sitting in it alone..."_

_Dudley began to cry loudly. In fact, he wasn't really crying — it had been years since he'd really cried — but he knew that if he screwed up his face and wailed, his mother would give him anything he wanted._

"_Dinky Duddydums, don't cry, Mummy won't let him spoil your special day!" she cried, flinging her arms around him._

"_I...don't...want...him...t-t-to come!" Dudley yelled between huge, pretend sobs. "He always sp-spoils everything!" He_

_shot Harry a nasty grin through the gap in his mother's arms._

_Just then, the doorbell rang — "Oh, good Lord, they're here!"_

_said Aunt Petunia frantically — and a moment later, Dudley's best friend, Piers Polkiss, walked in with his mother. Piers was a scrawny boy with a face like a rat. He was usually the one who held people's arms behind their backs while Dudley hit them. Dudley stopped pretending to cry at once._

"I'd like to meet this Piers one day Harry, if you'll let me." Ginny growled.

"We'll see Gin. Maybe if you're good." The Slytherins all looked at each other very confused.

_Half an hour later, Harry, who couldn't believe his luck, was sitting in the back of the Dursleys' car with Piers and Dudley, on the way to the zoo for the first time in his life. His aunt and uncle hadn't been able to think of anything else to do with him, but before they'd left, Uncle Vernon had taken Harry aside._

"_I'm warning you," he had said, putting his large purple face right up close to Harry's, "I'm warning you now, boy — any funny business, anything at all — and you'll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas."_

_I'm not going to do anything," said Harry, "honestly..."_

_But Uncle Vernon didn't believe him. No one ever did._

"No one ever believed me either Harry, don't worry." Sirius said in mock sadness.

"Ahhh but you really were at fault Black." Severus pointed out.

"Yes, well, that's beside the point." Sirius grumbled back and Remus cracked up laughing leaning into Severus.

_The problem was, strange things often happened around Harry and it was just no good telling the Dursleys he didn't make them happen._

_Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of Harry coming back from the barbers looking as though he hadn't been at all, had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut his hair so short he was almost bald except for his bangs, which she left "to hide that horrible scar." Dudley had laughed himself silly at Harry, who spent a sleepless night imagining school the next day, where he was already laughed at for his baggy clothes and taped glasses. Next morning, however, he had gotten up to find his hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia had sheared it off. He had been given a week in his cupboard for this, even though he had tried to explain that he __couldn't __explain how it had grown back so quickly._

_Another time, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force him into a revolting old sweater of Dudley's (brown with orange puff balls). The harder she tried to pull it over his head, the smaller it seemed to become, until finally it might have fitted a hand puppet, but certainly wouldn't fit Harry. Aunt Petunia had decided it must have shrunk in the wash and, to his great relief, Harry wasn't punished._

_On the other hand, he'd gotten into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the school kitchens. Dudley's gang had been chasing him as usual when, as much to Harry's surprise as anyone else's, there he was sitting on the chimney. The Dursleys had received a very angry letter from Harry's headmistress telling them Harry had been climbing school buildings. But all he'd tried to do (as he shouted at Uncle Vernon through the locked door of his cupboard) was jump behind the big trash cans outside the kitchen doors. Harry supposed that the wind must have caught him in mid-jump._

"You're mother use to do that all the time." Severus spoke up with a fond smile.

Bewildered, Harry looked at Severus. "You knew my mother?"

Nodding he answered, "We grew up in the same neighborhood. She was my best friend since we were 9. I'm the one who told her about magic."

_But today, nothing was going to go wrong. It was even worth being with Dudley and Piers to be spending the day somewhere that wasn't school, his cupboard, or Mrs. Figg's cabbage-smelling living room._

_While he drove, Uncle Vernon complained to Aunt Petunia. He liked to complain about things: people at work, Harry, the council, Harry, the bank, and Harry were just a few of his favorite subjects. This morning, it was motorcycles._

"_...roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums," he said, as a motorcycle overtook them._

"_I had a dream about a motorcycle," said Harry, remembering suddenly. "It was flying."_

"Oh Harry, you didn't." Draco groaned.

_Uncle Vernon nearly crashed into the car in front. He turned right around in his seat and yelled at Harry, his face like a gigantic beet with a mustache: "MOTORCYCLES DON'T FLY!"_

_Dudley and Piers sniggered._

"_I know they don't," said Harry. "It was only a dream."_

_But he wished he hadn't said anything. If there was one thing the Dursleys hated even more than his asking questions, it was his talking about anything acting in a way it shouldn't, no matter if it was in a dream or even a cartoon — they seemed to think he might get dangerous ideas._

_It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families. The Dursleys bought Dudley and Piers large chocolate ice creams at the entrance and then, because the smiling lady in the van had asked Harry what he wanted before they could hurry him away, they bought him a cheap lemon ice pop. It wasn't bad, either, Harry thought, licking it as they watched a gorilla scratching its head who looked remarkably like Dudley, except that it wasn't blond._

Ginny, Fred, George and Sirius rolled around laughing while harry giggled at them leaning back into Draco.

_Harry had the best morning he'd had in a long time. He was_

_careful to walk a little way apart from the Dursleys so that Dudley and Piers, who were starting to get bored with the animals by lunchtime, wouldn't fall back on their favorite hobby of hitting him. They ate in the zoo restaurant, and when Dudley had a tantrum because his knickerbocker glory didn't have enough ice cream on top, Uncle Vernon bought him another one and Harry was allowed to finish the first._

_Harry felt, afterward, that he should have known it was all too good to last._

_After lunch they went to the reptile house. _

~Is this going where I think it is?~ Tom hissed in parseltongue.

~Most likely~ Harry giggled back.

_It was cool and dark in there, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. Dudley and Piers wanted to see huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons. Dudley quickly found the largest snake in the place. It could have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Vernon's car and crushed it into a trash can — but at the moment it didn't look in the mood. In fact, it was fast asleep._

_Dudley stood with his nose pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening brown coils._

"_Make it move," he whined at his father. Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass, but the snake didn't budge._

Tom hissed in anger for the snake.

"_Do it again," Dudley ordered. Uncle Vernon rapped the glass smartly with his knuckles, but the snake just snoozed on._

"_This is boring," Dudley moaned. He shuffled away._

_Harry moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. He wouldn't have been surprised if it had died of boredom itself — no company except stupid people drumming their fingers on the glass trying to disturb it all day long. It was worse than having a cupboard as a bedroom, where the only visitor was Aunt Petunia hammering on the door to wake you up; at least he got to visit the rest of the house._

_The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Harry's._

_It winked._

Ginny, Luna and Bellatrix giggled and Narcissa shivered, she never liked snakes.

_Harry stared. Then he looked quickly around to see if anyone was watching. They weren't. He looked back at the snake and winked, too._

_The snake jerked its head toward Uncle Vernon and Dudley, then raised its eyes to the ceiling. It gave Harry a look that said quite plainly:_

"_I get that all the time.__"_

"_I know," Harry murmured through the glass, though he wasn't sure the snake could hear him. "It must be really annoying."_

_The snake nodded vigorously._

"_Where do you come from, anyway?" Harry asked._

_The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Harry peered at it._

_Boa Constrictor, Brazil._

"_Was it nice there?"_

_The boa constrictor jabbed its tail at the sign again and Harry read on: This specimen was bred in the zoo. "Oh, I see-so you've never been to Brazil?"_

_As the snake shook its head, a deafening shout behind Harry made both of them jump. "DUDLEY! MR. DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T __BELIEVE__ WHAT IT'S DOING!"_

_Dudley came waddling toward them as fast as he could._

"_Out of the way, you," he said, punching Harry in the ribs._

_Caught by surprise, Harry fell hard on the concrete floor. _

"Hey!" Fred and George yelled together.

_What came next happened so fast no one saw how it happened-one second, Piers and Dudley were leaning right up close to the glass, the next, they had leapt back with howls of horror._

_Harry sat up and gasped; the glass front of the boa constrictor's tank had vanished. The great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly, slithering out onto the floor. People throughout the reptile house screamed and started running for the exits._

"Brilliant Harry, just brilliant." Sirius gasped out, having a hard time breathing from laughing so hard. Even Severus and Tom were smiling.

_As the snake slid swiftly past him, Harry could have sworn a low, hissing voice said, "Brazil, here I come...Thanksss, amigo."_

Yet another round of giggles as Tom shook his head in amusement.

_The keeper of the reptile house was in shock._

"_But the glass," he kept saying, "where did the glass go?"_

_The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a cup of strong, sweet tea while he apologized over and over again. Piers and Dudley could only gibber. As far as Harry had seen, the snake hadn't done anything except snap playfully at their heels as it passed, but by the time they were all back in Uncle Vernon's car, Dudley was telling them how it had nearly bitten off his leg, while Piers was swearing it had tried to squeeze him to death. But worst of all, for Harry at least, was Piers calming down enough to say, "Harry was talking to it, weren't you, Harry?"_

"Big mouthed brat." Draco grumbled and Harry just raised an eyebrow at him as if to say "really?"

_Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting on Harry. He was so angry he could hardly speak. He managed to say, "Go-cupboard-stay-no meals," before he collapsed into a chair, and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy._

_Harry lay in his dark cupboard much later, wishing he had a watch. He didn't know what time it was and he couldn't be sure the Dursleys were asleep yet. Until they were, he couldn't risk sneaking to the kitchen for some food._

"Well now I know where you get your ability to sneak around without getting caught from." Severus remarked dryly. Harry's face turned red and he ducked it down and kept reading.

_He'd lived with the Dursleys almost ten years, ten miserable years, as long as he could remember, ever since he'd been a baby and his parents had died in that car crash. He couldn't remember being in the car when his parents had died. Sometimes, when he strained his memory during long hours in his cupboard, he came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burning pain on his forehead. This, he supposed, was the crash, though he couldn't imagine where all the green light came from._

Everyone turned to look at harry in horror except Remus who already knew he remembered. "Merlin Harry, I'm so sorry." Tom whispered, shocking everyone present.

Harry looked like he was going to cry and laid his head on Draco's shoulder. He didn't know why he was taking comfort from the blonde but he didn't really care, it just felt right.

"It's fine Tom really. I forgave you already." Harry breathed out before continuing to read.

_He couldn't remember his parents at all. His aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course he was forbidden to ask questions. There were no photographs of them in the house._

_When he had been younger, Harry had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take him away, _

Sirius winced and ducked his head in shame. If he hadn't gone after Pettigrew, he would have been there for Harry. Harry leaned over and grabbed Sirius' hand. "It wasn't your fault Siri, Dumbledore could have gotten you freed at anytime, he knew you were innocent. Don't blame yourself."

_but it had never happened; the Dursleys were his only family. Yet sometimes he thought (or maybe hoped) that strangers in the street seemed to know him. Very strange strangers they were, too. A tiny man in a violet top hat had bowed to him once while out shopping with Aunt Petunia and Dudley. After asking Harry furiously if he knew the man, Aunt Petunia had rushed them out of the shop without buying anything. A wild-looking old woman dressed all in green had waved merrily at him once on a bus. A bald man in a very long purple coat had actually shaken his hand in the street the other day and then walked away without a word. The weirdest thing about all these people was the way they seemed to vanish the second Harry tried to get a closer look._

"They disapparated Dear." Narcissa said.

Harry ducked his head in embarrassment. "I know that now ma'am."

"It's Narcissa darling." Harry nodded.

_At school, Harry had no one. Everybody knew that Dudley's_

_gang hated that odd Harry Potter in his baggy old clothes and broken glasses, and nobody liked to disagree with Dudley's gang._

"That's the end of the chapter." Harry yawned out.

"Let's get some rest and we can read some more tomorrow. Alright I have three spare bedrooms so unfortunately we will have to squeeze. Luna, Ginny, and Bellatrix can have the room on the second floor at the top of the stairs and Harry, Fred, George and Draco can take the other room on that floor. Lucius, Tom and Narcissa can have the last room on the third floor on the left. Remus and Sirius will have to sleep in my room."

When Harry woke up from a nightmare later that night Draco climbed into bed with him and held him while he cried for his parents and a childhood he never had. "Shhh Harry, it's okay. I'll take care of you now I promise."

Harry snuggled into Draco's arms and before he dropped back off to sleep he reached up and softly brushed his lips against Draco's. "Thank you, Dray." He whispered before passing back out into a dreamless sleep.

Meanwhile elsewhere in the house Tom was meeting with Lucius, Severus, Bellatrix and Sirius.

"Just bring them back here and lock them in the basement. Make sure they can't get out and DON'T hurt them. Just get them here." And the five of them moved out to bring Harry a little present.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N~ sorry it took me a couple days to update. between my uncles wedding and mothers day i havent been at my computer. so sorry guys.

~parseltongue~

When Harry woke up the next morning he felt more rested than he could ever remember being. When he went to stretch his muscles he was stopped by an arm slug around his waist and suddenly last night replayed in his head. Draco nuzzled Harry's hair and his face turned bright red when Draco's fingers ran a lazy path over his abdomen.

"Relax Harry; I'm not going to jump you. Why don't we head to the kitchen and make breakfast. I think we're the first up, it's only 6."

"Sorry," Harry mumbled. "I get up early."

"Its fine, I do too. Come on before we wake up menace 1 and 2." He joked while pulling on a shirt and Harry giggled. As they moved past the library they heard snoring and stuck their heads in. Sirius was passed out on the couch, snoring loud enough to wake the whole house. Harry smirked.

"I think I know how that happened." He laughed walking into the kitchen and pulling out ingredients for omelets, bacon, pancakes, and after a moment of thought, sticky buns. "Why don't you start the omelets and bacon and I'll start the pancakes and sticky buns. Draco's smile grew bigger.

"Sticky buns are my favorite." He said excitedly.

"I know." Harry mumbled back, embarrassed as his face turned red. "Draco I'm sorry about last night, I don't usually cry all over people then go and kiss them." Draco put a hand over Harry's mouth to keep him from rambling.

"Harry its okay. I want you to be yourself around me and as for the kiss, well I liked it." Draco turned pink as he moved his hand to cup Harry's cheek. He turned even pinker as the two of them stood there just looking at each other, only to jump apart when Luna ran into the kitchen.

"Sorry I was looking for Ginny, She wasn't in the room when I woke up and I can't find her. I'm sorry 'Ry"

"It's okay Moonbeam, she probably wandered off again. Draco, can you go get the twins? Luna get Sirius, I'll get Remus and we'll meet back in the library." Draco watched them run out of the room before shaking his head in confusion and going to retrieve the twins. When he got back Severus was in the library too, looking just as curious as Draco. Harry stepped forward.

"Ginny wasn't in her bed this morning," He started and the twins shook their heads in exasperation. "Does anyone know where she is?" No one answered; they all looked at the floor. "Come on guys, someone must know." Wondering what was going on Severus stepped up.

"I believe I may know where Miss Weasley is." Harry raised an eyebrow at him before turning back to the others. "Remus," he snapped and Remus came forward. "Watch them." Remus nodded. "Where is she Professor?"

"Follow me." He answered, heading up the stairs to the attic. When they opened the attic door they did find Ginny, wrapped up in Tom's arms. They both looked up, Ginny looked like a child about to get spanked and Tom looked curious.

"Severus what is go…" Tom started but Harry cut him off.

"Ginerva Weasley!" Harry shouted startling Tom and Severus. "Collect yourself and let's go, everyone is waiting in the library." She jumped up and pulled on her socks and jumper before following Harry out, leaving Severus and Tom to hurry after them, very confused.

When they got back to the library everyone was there, apparently Harry's yelling had woken everyone. Fred, George, Luna, Sirius and Remus stood in a half circle in the middle of the room. Ginny stood in the middle and Harry stood facing them all. Draco came and stood slightly behind and left of Harry. The rest all watched in fascination and curiosity.

Finally harry spoke. "What was the first rule I gave before we came here? The rule I always give?" He asks in a hard voice. Ginny looked down with tears in her eyes. "I'm waiting." But it seemed she couldn't speak. "Sirius?"

"No wandering off alone or without telling someone where you're going." He answered.

"Correct. Ginny this is the third time you've broken this rule. The first time I gave you a warning, the second time I left it to your brothers to punish you. Fred, how did you punish her?" He asked and Ginny's face flamed red.

"We both spanked her for a total of 20 times." Harry nodded.

"This time you receive punishment from me. Kitchen duty for a week, any complaints will add two days." She nodded, Harry's face softened and he opened his arms to her. "You worried us; you should have told Luna where you were going. You know we won't judge you." He kissed the top of her head and motioned her to follow him. Then he turned to Draco and shyly held out his hand. Smiling, Draco took it and they headed back to the kitchen.

Silence fell over the library for what seemed like hours. Finally tom spoke.

"What the hell was that?!" He exclaimed.

"That," George responded "Was 'Ry. He kind of reminds us of you professor." Severus blushed. "He's head of our little misfit clan. He tries to solve problems without having to act the authority. He only does if you hit three strikes on the same offence like Ginny. I've only seen him slap one of us once." Sirius turned bright red.

"I didn't know!" He yelled. "I apologized."

"Geez Black, what did you do to get him to slap you?" Lucius asked.

"I insulted the person he thinks of like a father." Sirius mumbled ashamed.

"Sounds like you deserved it Black, who'd you insult anyway?" Severus asked. Fred, George, Luna, Sirius and Remus all looked uncomfortably at each other. Harry, Draco and Ginny came back in and set the plates on the table. Harry turned towards them and sighed.

"Really guys?" He turned back to Severus. "It was you he insulted Professor." Severus stared, shocked. "Now let's eat and then we can read some more." Harry grabbed a bun and motioned Severus into the hallway.

"I know you have a lot of questions for me, so if you'll have lunch with me I'll answer any you want to ask."

"Of course." He said. "And Harry? You can call me Severus." He nodded.

Back in the library it looked like everyone was paired off. Tom and Ginny were snuggled in an armchair and so was Luna. Sirius was laid out on the floor, Lucius and Narcissa were back in there loveseat and perhaps the scariest couple, or so Harry secretly thought, was Fred, George and Bellatrix on one of the couches. Severus joined Remus on the other couch and Harry enlarged Draco's beanbag chair and snuggled into him as Draco wrapped his arms around him.

"Okay," Severus started "Who wants to read first today?" Surprisingly it was Narcissa who volunteered.

"This chapter is called_ THE LETTERS FROM NO ONE" _She began.

_The escape of the Brazilian boa constrictor earned Harry his longest-ever punishment. By the time he was allowed out of his cupboard again, the summer holidays had started and Dudley had already broken his new video camera, crashed his remote control airplane, and, first time out on his racing bike, knocked down old Mrs. Figg as she crossed Privet Drive on her crutches._

Sirius broke out laughing and both Remus and Harry gave him reprimanding looks.

_Harry was glad school was over, but there was no escaping Dudley's gang, who visited the house every single day. Piers, Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordon were all big and stupid, but as Dudley was the biggest and stupidest of the lot, he was the leader. The rest of them were all quite happy to join in Dudley's favorite sport: Harry Hunting._

_This was why Harry spent as much time as possible out of the house, wandering around and thinking about the end of the holidays, where he could see a tiny ray of hope. When September came he would be going off to secondary school and, for the first time in his life, he wouldn't be with Dudley. Dudley had been accepted at Uncle Vernon's old private school, Smeltings. Piers Polkiss was going there too. Harry, on the other hand, was going to Stonewall High, the local public school. Dudley thought this was very funny._

"_They stuff people's heads down the toilet the first day at_

_Stonewall," he told Harry. "Want to come upstairs and practice?"_

"_No, thanks," said Harry. "The poor toilet's never had anything as horrible as your head down it—it might be sick." Then he ran, before Dudley could work out what he'd said._

"Harry, we never,"

"Knew you could be,"

"So funny." The twins laughed out.

Harry laughed too. "He never did work it out either."

_One day in July, Aunt Petunia took Dudley to London to buy his Smeltings uniform, leaving Harry at Mrs. Figg's. Mrs. Figg wasn't as bad as usual. It turned out she'd broken her leg tripping over one of her cats, and she didn't seem quite as fond of them as before. She let Harry watch television and gave him a bit of chocolate cake that tasted as though she'd had it for several years._

_That evening, Dudley paraded around the living room for the family in his brand-new uniform. Smeltings boys wore maroon tailcoats, orange knickerbockers, and flat straw hats called boaters._

Lucius, Narcissa and Draco grimaced and Ginny broke out in peals of laughter.

_They also carried knobbly sticks, used for hitting each other while the teachers weren't looking. This was supposed to be good training for later life._

"What an awful school." Tom said.

_As he looked at Dudley in his new knickerbockers, Uncle Vernon said gruffly that it was the proudest moment of his life. Aunt_

_Petunia burst into tears and said she couldn't believe it was her Ickle Dudleykins, he looked so handsome and grown-up. Harry didn't trust himself to speak. He thought two of his ribs might already have cracked from trying not to laugh._

_There was a horrible smell in the kitchen the next morning when_

_Harry went in for breakfast. It seemed to be coming from a large metal tub in the sink. He went to have a look. The tub was full of what looked like dirty rags swimming in gray water._

"_What's this?" he asked Aunt Petunia. Her lips tightened as they always did if he dared to ask a question._

"_Your new school uniform," she said._

_Harry looked in the bowl again._

"_Oh," he said, "I didn't realize it had to be so wet."_

"Harry what happen to this sense of humor?" Sirius asked.

"I learned I was a wizard." He said seriously and Sirius looked away. Narcissa cleared her throat and continued reading.

"_Don't be stupid," snapped Aunt Petunia. "I'm dying some of_

_Dudley's old things gray for you. It'll look just like everyone else's when I've finished."_

_Harry seriously doubted this, but thought it best not to argue._

_He sat down at the table and tried not to think about how he was going to look on his first day at Stonewall High—like he was wearing bits of old elephant skin, probably._

Draco wrinkled his nose at the description. "Gross Harry."

_Dudley and Uncle Vernon came in, both with wrinkled noses because of the smell from Harry's new uniform. Uncle Vernon opened his newspaper as usual and Dudley banged his Smelting stick, which he carried everywhere, on the table. They heard the click of the mail slot and flop of letters on the doormat._

"_Get the mail, Dudley," said Uncle Vernon from behind his paper._

"He's making his son do something?" Lucius asked, surprised.

"Wait for it." Harry Said

"_Make Harry get it."_

"_Get the mail, Harry."_

"_Make Dudley get it."_

"_Poke him with your Smelting stick, Dudley."_

_Harry dodged the Smelting stick and went to get the mail. Three things lay on the doormat: a postcard from Uncle Vernon's sister_

_Marge, who was vacationing on the Isle of Wight, a brown envelope that looked like a bill and— a__ letter for Harry._

_Harry picked it up and stared at it, his heart twanging like a giant elastic band. No one, ever, in his whole life, had written to him. Who would? He had no friends, no other relatives — he didn't belong to the library, so he'd never even got rude notes asking for books back. Yet here it was, a letter, addressed so plainly there could be no mistake:_

_Mr. H. Potter_

_The Cupboard under the Stairs_

_4 Privet Drive_

_Little Whinging_

_Surrey_

"Your letter was addressed to the cupboard under the stairs? Why didn't Dumbledore do something if he knew?" Draco asked incredulously.

"For the same reason he sent me back after I told him about the Dursleys at the end of first year. He's a manipulative old fool who likes to play god." Harry sneered and Tom nodded, knowing what Harry meant.

_The envelope was thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the address was written in emerald-green ink. There was no stamp._

_Turning the envelope over, his hand trembling, Harry saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake surrounding a large letter __H._

The teens all cheered and Harry laughed.

"_Hurry up, boy!" shouted Uncle Vernon from the kitchen._

"_What are you doing, checking for letter bombs?" He chuckled at his own joke._

"That's a horrible thing to joke about." Bellatrix stated.

_Harry went back to the kitchen, still staring at his letter. He handed Uncle Vernon the bill and the postcard, sat down, and slowly began to open the yellow envelope._

"Stupid, stupid, stupid." Harry muttered confusing everyone.

_Uncle Vernon ripped open the bill, snorted in disgust, and flipped over the postcard._

"_Marge's ill," he informed Aunt Petunia. "Ate a funny whelk..."_

"_Dad!" said Dudley suddenly. "Dad, Harry's got something!"_

"Tattle tale." Draco sneered at the book. Harry took his hand and rubbed circles along the back of it.

_Harry was on the point of unfolding his letter, which was written on the same heavy parchment as the envelope, when it was jerked sharply out of his hand by Uncle Vernon._

"Hey! Give that back!" Fred and George yelled together.

"_That's __mine__!" said Harry, trying to snatch it back._

"_Who'd be writing to you?" sneered Uncle Vernon, shaking the letter open with one hand and glancing at it. His face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights. And it didn't stop there. Within seconds it was the grayish white of old porridge._

"_P-P-Petunia!" he gasped._

_Dudley tried to grab the letter to read it, but Uncle Vernon held it high out of his reach. Aunt Petunia took it curiously and read the first line. For a moment it looked as though she might faint. She clutched her throat and made a choking noise._

"_Vernon! Oh my goodness—Vernon!"_

_They stared at each other, seeming to have forgotten that Harry and Dudley were still in the room. Dudley wasn't used to being ignored. He gave his father a sharp tap on the head with his Smelting stick._

"Best thing he's done with it so far." Bellatrix snorted. Everyone nodded in agreement.

"_I want to read that letter," he said loudly._

"_I __want to read it," said Harry furiously, "as it's __mine.__"_

"_Get out, both of you," croaked Uncle Vernon, stuffing the letter back inside its envelope._

_Harry didn't move._

"_I WANT MY LETTER!" he shouted._

"Ah there's that famous Potter temper." Severus said dryly.

"Hey!" Ginny yelled.

"Ginny don't. He's right, the Potter temper is infamous." Harry laughed. Everyone looked shocked that Harry and Severus could agree on something.

"_Let __me __see it!" demanded Dudley._

"_OUT!" roared Uncle Vernon and he took both Harry and Dudley by the scruffs of their necks and threw them into the hall, slamming the kitchen door behind them. Harry and Dudley promptly had a furious but silent fight over who would listen at the keyhole; Dudley won, so Harry, his glasses dangling from one ear, lay flat on his stomach to listen at the crack between door and floor._

"He threw his son out?" Sirius asked amazed.

"He really did not want us to know what was in that letter. He went kind of crazy." Harry answered, smirking slightly.

"_Vernon," Aunt Petunia was saying in a quivering voice, "look at the address—how could they possibly know where he sleeps? You don't think they're watching the house?"_

"_Watching—spying—might be following us," muttered Uncle Vernon wildly. _

"Wow he's paranoid, why would we watch a house we thought was perfectly safe?" Remus asked.

"It gets worse." Was all Harry said.

"_But what should we do, Vernon? Should we write back? Tell them we don't want—"_

_Harry could see Uncle Vernon's shiny black shoes pacing up and down the kitchen._

"_No," he said finally. "No, we'll ignore it. If they don't get an answer...Yes, that's best...we won't do anything..."_

"_But —"_

"_I'm not having one in the house, Petunia! Didn't we swear when we took him in we'd stamp out that dangerous nonsense?"_

Tom hissed in outrage, glaring daggers at the book.

~Harry, I have to talk to you after lunch, if that's ok.~

~Of course Tom. Why don't you join Severus and me for lunch.~

~thank you, I will.~

_That evening when he got back from work, Uncle Vernon did something he'd never done before; he visited Harry in his cupboard._

"_Where's my letter?" said Harry, the moment Uncle Vernon had squeezed through the door. _

"How did he fit?" Draco asked incredulously.

"No idea." Harry shrugged.

"_Who's writing to me?"_

"_No one. It was addressed to you by mistake," said Uncle Vernon shortly. "I have burned it."_

"_It was __not __a mistake," said Harry angrily, "it had my cupboard on it."_

"_SILENCE!" yelled Uncle Vernon, and a couple of spiders fell from the ceiling. He took a few deep breaths and then forced his face into a smile, which looked quite painful._

"_Er—yes, Harry—about this cupboard. Your aunt and I have been thinking...you're really getting a bit big for it...we think it might be nice if you moved into Dudley's second bedroom."_

"He had two bedrooms and you were sleeping in a cupboard?" Harry nodded as answer. "Why?"

"Because freaks don't deserve bedrooms." Harry answered seriously. The Slytherins stared at him, as if they thought he might suddenly laugh at his own joke and the Gryffindors shook their heads sadly.

"Oh Harry." Draco whispered in Harry's ear, pulling him close.

"_Why?" said Harry._

"_Don't ask questions!" snapped his uncle. "Take this stuff upstairs, now."_

_The Dursleys' house had four bedrooms: one for Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, one for visitors (usually Uncle Vernon's sister, Marge), one where Dudley slept, and one where Dudley kept all the toys and things that wouldn't fit into his first bedroom. It only took Harry one trip upstairs to move everything he owned from the cupboard to this room. He sat down on the bed and stared around him. Nearly everything in here was broken. The month-old video camera was lying on top of a small, working tank Dudley had once driven over the next door neighbor's dog; in the corner was Dudley's first-ever television set, which he'd put his foot through when his favorite program had been canceled; there was a large birdcage, which had once held a parrot that Dudley had swapped at school for a real air rifle, which was up on a shelf with the end all bent because Dudley had sat on it. Other shelves were full of books__. __They were the only things in the room that looked as though they'd never been touched._

"They hadn't been, Dudley never reads. I've read them all over my summers."

_From downstairs came the sound of Dudley bawling at his mother, "I don't __want __him in there...I __need __that room...make him get out..."_

_Harry sighed and stretched out on the bed. Yesterday he'd have given anything to be up here. Today he'd rather be back in his cupboard with that letter than up here without it._

Everyone looked sadly at a Harry who was snuggled in Draco's side so he couldn't see anyone. Tom just looked incredibly guilty.

_Next morning at breakfast, everyone was rather quiet. Dudley was in shock. He'd screamed, whacked his father with his Smelting stick, been sick on purpose, kicked his mother, and thrown his tortoise through the greenhouse roof, and he still didn't have his room back. Harry was thinking about this time yesterday and bitterly wishing he'd opened the letter in the hall. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia kept looking at each other darkly._

_When the mail arrived, Uncle Vernon, who seemed to be trying to be nice to Harry, made Dudley go and get it. They heard him banging things with his Smelting stick all the way down the hall. Then he shouted, "There's another one! 'Mr. H. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive—' "_

_With a strangled cry, Uncle Vernon leapt from his seat and ran down the hall, Harry right behind him. Uncle Vernon had to wrestle Dudley to the ground to get the letter from him, which was made difficult by the fact that Harry had grabbed Uncle Vernon around the neck from behind. After a minute of confused fighting, in which everyone got hit a lot by the Smelting stick, Uncle Vernon straightened up, gasping for breath, with Harry's letter clutched in his hand. _

"Just let him have the letter!" Sirius yelled at the book.

"Sirius?" Luna said getting his attention. "It's a book, it can't hear you." Sirius stared at her like he thought she was crazy.

"_Go to your cupboard — I mean, your bedroom," he wheezed at Harry. "Dudley—go—just go."_

_Harry walked round and round his new room. Someone knew he had moved out of his cupboard and they seemed to know he hadn't received his first letter. Surely that meant they'd try again? And this time he'd make sure they didn't fail. He had a plan._

_The repaired alarm clock rang at six o'clock the next morning._

_Harry turned it off quickly and dressed silently He mustn't wake the Dursleys. He stole downstairs without turning on any of the lights._

_He was going to wait for the postman on the corner of Privet_

_Drive and get the letters for number four first. His heart hammered as he crept across the dark hall toward the front door—_

"_AAAAARRRGH!"_

_Harry leapt into the air; he'd trodden on something big and squashy on the doormat — something __alive__!_

_Lights clicked on upstairs and to his horror Harry realized that the big, squashy something had been his uncle's face._

The teenagers all started laughing until they couldn't breathe but Draco just held Harry tighter as he started shaking again. Unnoticed to anyone but Draco, Luna made her way over to Harry.

"They aren't laughing at you Oniichan; they're laughing your Uncle. We love you Harry you know that." She whispered to him so only Harry and Draco could here, and then slipped back to her seat.

_Uncle Vernon had been lying at the foot of the front door in a sleeping bag, clearly making sure that Harry didn't do exactly what he'd been trying to do. He shouted at Harry for about half an hour and then told him to go and make a cup of tea. Harry shuffled miserably off into the kitchen and by the time he got back, the mail had arrived, right into Uncle Vernon's lap. Harry could see three letters addressed in green ink._

"_I want—" he began, but Uncle Vernon was tearing the letters into pieces before his eyes._

_Uncle Vernon didn't go to work that day. He stayed at home and nailed up the mail slot._

"Yea, because that will stop them." Lucius sneered.

"_See," he explained to Aunt Petunia through a mouthful of nails,_

"_if they can't __deliver __them they'll just give up."_

"_I'm not sure that'll work, Vernon."_

"_Oh, these peoples minds work in strange ways, Petunia, they're not like you and me," said Uncle Vernon, trying to knock in a nail with the piece of fruitcake Aunt Petunia had just brought him._

"They make us sound like barbarians." Narcissa said, disgusted.

"It's why the magical world needs to be hidden from muggles." Tom said quietly, watching Harry try to burrow deeper into Draco's side.

_On Friday, no less than twelve letters arrived for Harry. As they couldn't go through the mail slot they had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides, and a few even forced through the small window in the downstairs bathroom._

_Uncle Vernon stayed at home again. After burning all the letters, he got out a hammer and nails and boarded up the cracks around the front and back doors so no one could go out. He hummed "Tiptoe through the Tulips" as he worked, and jumped at small noises._

"The man really is going crazy." Bellatrix giggled. Everyone just stared at her a moment. "What?"

Harry came out of his hiding place to laugh and say, "Bellatrix you just called a man crazy." Everyone started to laugh. "But you're right. And he gets worse."

_On Saturday, things began to get out of hand. Twenty-four letters to Harry found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two dozen eggs that their very confused milkman had handed Aunt Petunia through the living room window. While Uncle Vernon made furious telephone calls to the post office and the dairy trying to find someone to complain to, Aunt Petunia shredded the letters in her food processor._

"_Who on earth wants to talk to __you __this badly?" Dudley asked Harry in amazement. _

_On Sunday morning, Uncle Vernon sat down at the breakfast table looking tired and rather ill, but happy._

"_No post on Sundays," he reminded them cheerfully as he spread marmalade on his newspapers, "no damn letters today—"_

"Ahhh, but we aren't muggles." Remus said.

_Something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney as he spoke and caught him sharply on the back of the head. Next moment, thirty or forty letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Dursleys ducked, but Harry leapt into the air trying to catch one—_

"_Out! OUT!"_

_Uncle Vernon seized Harry around the waist and threw him into the hall. When Aunt Petunia and Dudley had run out with their arms over their faces, Uncle Vernon slammed the door shut. They could hear the letters still streaming into the room, bouncing off the walls and floor._

"_That does it," said Uncle Vernon, trying to speak calmly but pulling great tufts out of his mustache at the same time. "I want you all back here in five minutes ready to leave. We're going away. Just pack some clothes. No arguments!"_

_He looked so dangerous with half his mustache missing that no one dared argue. Ten minutes later they had wrenched their way through the boarded-up doors and were in the car, speeding toward the highway. Dudley was sniffling in the back seat; his father had hit him round the head for holding them up while he tried to pack his television, VCR, and computer in his sports bag._

George, Luna, Fred and Sirius cheered as Remus gave them a disapproving look.

_They drove. And they drove. Even Aunt Petunia didn't dare ask where they were going. Every now and then Uncle Vernon would take a sharp turn and drive in the opposite direction for a while. _

"_Shake 'em off...shake 'em off," he would mutter whenever he did this._

_They didn't stop to eat or drink all day. By nightfall Dudley was howling. He'd never had such a bad day in his life. He was hungry, he'd missed five television programs he'd wanted to see, and he'd never gone so long without blowing up an alien on his computer._

_Uncle Vernon stopped at last outside a gloomy-looking hotel on the outskirts of a big city. Dudley and Harry shared a room with twin beds and damp, musty sheets. Dudley snored but Harry stayed awake, sitting on the windowsill, staring down at the lights of passing cars and wondering..._

_They ate stale cornflakes and cold tinned tomatoes on toast for breakfast the next day. They had just finished when the owner of the hotel came over to their table._

" '_Scuse me, but is one of you Mr. H. Potter? Only I got about an 'undred of these at the front desk."_

_She held up a letter so they could read the green ink address:_

_Mr. H. Potter_

_Room 17_

_Railview Hotel_

_Cokeworth_

_Harry made a grab for the letter but Uncle Vernon knocked his hand out of the way. The woman stared._

"_I'll take them," said Uncle Vernon, standing up quickly and following her from the dining room._

"So rude." Tom sniffed.

"_Wouldn't it be better just to go home, dear?" Aunt Petunia suggested timidly, hours later, but Uncle Vernon didn't seem to hear her. Exactly what he was looking for, none of them knew. He drove them into the middle of a forest, got out, looked around, shook his head, got back in the car, and off they went again. The same thing happened in the middle of a plowed field, halfway across a suspension bridge, and at the top of a multilevel parking garage._

"_Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he?" Dudley asked Aunt Petunia dully late that afternoon. Uncle Vernon had parked at the coast, locked them all inside the car, and disappeared._

Fred snorted. "He's gone madder than me and Georgey when we get an idea for a prank."

_It started to rain. Great drops beat on the roof of the car. Dudley sniveled._

"_It's Monday," he told his mother. "The Great Humberto's on tonight. I want to stay somewhere with a __television.__"_

_Monday, this reminded Harry of something. If it __was __Monday—and you could usually count on Dudley to know the days of the week, because of television — then tomorrow, Tuesday, was Harry's eleventh birthday. Of course, his birthdays were never exactly fun—last year; the Dursleys had given him a coat hanger and a pair of Uncle Vernon's old socks. Still, you weren't eleven every day._

"We'll throw a birthday party this year sweetie." Bellatrix said in a sugary sweet voice as everyone stared at her again. She huffed. "What?" Narcissa coughed lightly and continued.

_Uncle Vernon was back and he was smiling. He was also carrying a long, thin package and didn't answer Aunt Petunia when she asked what he'd bought._

"_Found the perfect place!" he said. "Come on! Everyone out!"_

_It was very cold outside the car. Uncle Vernon was pointing at what looked like a large rock way out at sea. Perched on top of the rock was the most miserable little shack you could imagine. One thing was certain; there was no television in there._

"Yep, he's officially nutters." Ginny giggled.

"_Storm forecast for tonight!" said Uncle Vernon gleefully, clapping his hands together. "And this gentleman's kindly agreed to lend us his boat!"_

_A toothless old man came ambling up to them, pointing, with a rather wicked grin, at an old rowboat bobbing in the iron-gray water below them._

"_I've already got us some rations," said Uncle Vernon, "so all aboard!"_

_It was freezing in the boat. Icy sea spray and rain crept down their necks and a chilly wind whipped their faces. After what seemed like hours they reached the rock, where Uncle Vernon, slipping and sliding, led the way to the broken-down house._

_The inside was horrible; it smelled strongly of seaweed, the wind whistled through the gaps in the wooden walls, and the fireplace was damp and empty. There were only two rooms._

_Uncle Vernon's rations turned out to be a bag of chips each and four bananas. He tried to start a fire but the empty chip bags just smoked and shriveled up._

"_Could do with some of those letters now, eh?" he said cheerfully._

_He was in a very good mood. Obviously he thought nobody stood a chance of reaching them here in a storm to deliver mail._

_Harry privately agreed, though the thought didn't cheer him up at all._

Draco pulled him close again, hoping they would get past Harry's family on to the rest of the story soon. Harry looked positively miserable with everyone knowing what happened to him. But Draco also wondered where the books had come from and who wrote them, and how they would know all about Harry's life.

_As night fell, the promised storm blew up around them. Spray from the high waves splattered the walls of the hut and a fierce wind rattled the filthy windows. Aunt Petunia found a few moldy blankets in the second room and made up a bed for Dudley on the moth-eaten sofa. She and Uncle Vernon went off to the lumpy bed next door, and Harry was left to find the softest bit of floor he could and to curl up under the thinnest, most ragged blanket._

_The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night went on. Harry couldn't sleep. He shivered and turned over, trying to get comfortable, his stomach rumbling with hunger. Dudley's snores were drowned by the low rolls of thunder that started near midnight. The lighted dial of Dudley's watch, which was dangling over the edge of the sofa on his fat wrist, told Harry he'd be eleven in ten minutes' time. He lay and watched his birthday tick nearer, wondering if the Dursleys would remember at all, wondering where the letter writer was now._

Everyone looked sadly at Harry again who was leaning against Draco with his eyes closed. Draco glared at them all till they looked away.

_Five minutes to go. Harry heard something creak outside. He hoped the roof wasn't going to fall in, although he might be warmer if it did. Four minutes to go. Maybe the house in Privet_

_Drive would be so full of letters when they got back that he'd be able to steal one somehow._

_Three minutes to go. Was that the sea, slapping hard on the rock like that? And (two minutes to go) what was that funny crunching noise? Was the rock crumbling into the sea?_

_One minute to go and he'd be eleven. Thirty seconds...twenty...ten...nine—maybe he'd wake Dudley up, just to annoy him—three...two...one..._

_BOOM._

_The whole shack shivered and Harry sat bolt upright, staring at the door. Someone was outside, knocking to come in. _

"That's the end." Narcissa said. "Who wants to read next?"

"I will." Sirius jumped up to grab the book. It seemed everyone was having a good time despite all the anger about how Harry was raised. Only Luna and Draco noticed how truly miserable Harry seemed to be.


	5. Chapter 5

Sirius cleared his throat. "This chapter is called_ THE KEEPER OF THE KEYS"_

_BOOM! They knocked again. Dudley jerked awake._

"_Where's the cannon?" he said stupidly._

"Idiot." Tom sneered.

"What's a cannon?" Lucius asked.

"Muggle weapon that blows things up." Severus replied.

_There was a crash behind them and Uncle Vernon came skidding into the room. He was holding a rifle in his hands—now they knew what had been in the long, thin package he had brought with them._

"_Who's there?" he shouted. "I warn you—I'm armed!"_

_There was a pause. Then—_

_SMASH!_

_The door was hit with such force that it swung clean off its hinges and with a deafening crash landed flat on the floor._

_A giant of a man was standing in the doorway. His face was almost completely hidden by a long, shaggy mane of hair and a wild, tangled beard, but you could make out his eyes, glinting like black beetles under all the hair._

"Harry your descriptions are so flattering." George snickered.

_The giant squeezed his way into the hut, stooping so that his head just brushed the ceiling. He bent down, picked up the door, and fitted it easily back into its frame. The noise of the storm outside dropped a little. He turned to look at them all._

"_Couldn't make us a cup o' tea, could yeh? It's not been an easy journey..."_

"Only Hagrid." Remus shook his head in amusement.

_He strode over to the sofa where Dudley sat frozen with fear._

"_Budge up, yeh great lump," said the stranger._

_Dudley squeaked and ran to hide behind his mother, who was crouching, terrified, behind Uncle Vernon._

"_An' here's Harry!" said the giant._

_Harry looked up into the fierce, wild, shadowy face and saw that the beetle eyes were crinkled in a smile._

"_Las' time I saw you, you was only a baby," said the giant. "Yeh look a lot like yer dad, but yeh've got yer mom's eyes."_

"Everyone always tells me about dad but no one ever tells me about mum." Harry said sadly.

"I think I can help you there Harry. I have something I think will make you feel better, I'll show it to you at lunch." Severus said.

_Uncle Vernon made a funny rasping noise._

"_I demand that you leave at once, sir!" he said. "You are breaking and entering!"_

"_Ah, shut up, Dursley, yeh great prune," said the giant; he reached over the back of the sofa, jerked the gun out of Uncle Vernon's hands, bent it into a knot as easily as if it had been made of rubber, and threw it into a corner of the room._

_Uncle Vernon made another funny noise, like a mouse being trodden on._

Sirius, Remus and Harry all got evil glints to their eyes on that statement. Draco noticing it asked "What?"

"Just thinking how I know a certain rat I'd like to try that on." Harry said menacingly. Tom got an understanding look in his eye and leaned over to Severus to whisper in his ear.

"_Anyway—Harry," said the giant, turning his back on the Dursleys, "a very happy birthday to yeh. Got summat fer yeh here—I mighta sat on it at some point, but it'll taste all right."_

_From an inside pocket of his black overcoat he pulled a slightly squashed box. Harry opened it with trembling fingers. Inside was a large, sticky chocolate cake with __Happy Birthday Harry __written on it in green icing._

"I don't think Hagrid made that cake, it was delicious." Harry said while everyone who had been subjected to Hagrid's cooking snickered in understanding.

_Harry looked up at the giant. He meant to say thank you, but the words got lost on the way to his mouth, and what he said instead was, "Who are you?"_

"Harry where are your manners!?" Remus scolded.

"Hey!" He answered in mock indignation. "A giant knocked down the door to a hut my uncle brought us to, to escape mysterious letter writers and not only did he mention my parents but he knew it was my birthday...I was very confused, okay?"

_The giant chuckled._

"_True, I haven't introduced meself. Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts."_

_He held out an enormous hand and shook Harry's whole arm._

"_What about that tea then, eh?" he said, rubbing his hands together. "I'd not say no ter summat stronger if yeh've got it, mind."_

Everyone just shook their heads and chuckled.

_His eyes fell on the empty grate with the shriveled chip bags in it and he snorted. He bent down over the fireplace; they couldn't see what he was doing but when he drew back a second later, there was a roaring fire there. It filled the whole damp hut with flickering light and Harry felt the warmth wash over him as though he'd sunk into a hot bath._

_The giant sat back down on the sofa, which sagged under his weight, and began taking all sorts of things out of the pockets of his coat: a copper kettle, a squashy package of sausages, a poker, a teapot, several chipped mugs, and a bottle of some amber liquid that he took a swig from before starting to make tea. Soon the hut was full of the sound and smell of sizzling sausage. Nobody said a thing while the giant was working, but as he slid the first six fat, juicy, slightly burnt sausages from the poker, Dudley fidgeted a little. Uncle Vernon said sharply, "Don't touch anything he gives you, Dudley."_

_The giant chuckled darkly._

"_Yer great puddin' of a son don' need fattenin' anymore, Dursley, don' worry."_

"Go Hagrid!" Fred whooped.

_He passed the sausages to Harry, who was so hungry he had never tasted anything so wonderful, but he still couldn't take his eyes off the giant. Finally, as nobody seemed about to explain anything, he said, "I'm sorry, but I still don't really know who you are."_

"Much better Harry." Remus laughed and in a show of great maturity Harry stuck his tongue out at him.

_The giant took a gulp of tea and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand._

"_Call me Hagrid," he said, "everyone does. An' like I told yeh,_

_I'm Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts—yeh'll know all about Hogwarts,_

_o' course."_

"_Er—no," said Harry._

_Hagrid looked shocked._

"_Sorry," Harry said quickly._

"Oh Oniichan, don't apologize. It wasn't your fault." Luna said quietly.

"_Sorry__?" barked Hagrid, turning to stare at the Dursleys, who shrank back into the shadows. "It's them as should be sorry! I knew yeh weren't gettin' yer letters but I never thought yeh wouldn't even know abou' Hogwarts, fer cryin' out loud! Did yeh never wonder where yer parents learned it all?"_

"_All what?" asked Harry._

"_ALL WHAT?" Hagrid thundered. "Now wait jus' one second!"_

_He had leapt to his feet. In his anger he seemed to fill the whole hut. The Dursleys were cowering against the wall._

"He was kinda starting to scare me with all the yelling." Harry whispered to Draco and Draco just held him tighter and kissed his head.

"_Do you mean ter tell me," he growled at the Dursleys, "that this boy — this boy! — knows nothin' abou' — about ANYTHING?"_

"Harry isn't gonna like that." Fred and George laughed.

"I should hope not, Hagrid basically called him dumb." Severus frowned.

_Harry thought this was going a bit far. He had been to school, after all, and his marks weren't bad._

"_I know __some __things," he said. "I can, you know, do math and stuff."_

_But Hagrid simply waved his hand and said, "About __our __world,_

_I mean. __Your __world. __My __world. __Yer parents' world.__"_

"_What world?"_

_Hagrid looked as if he was about to explode._

"_DURSLEY!" he boomed._

_Uncle Vernon, who had gone very pale, whispered something that sounded like "Mimblewimble." Hagrid stared wildly at Harry._

"I actually backed up a couple steps. I didn't know what to think, I was confused and he was yelling and looking menacingly at me." Harry said to everyone.

"Don't blame you mate, if he did it to me I'd probably do the same." Fred replied.

"_But yeh must know about yer mom and dad," he said. "I mean, they're __famous. __You're __famous.__"_

"_What? My—my mom and dad weren't famous, were they?"_

"_Yeh don' know...yeh don' know..." Hagrid ran his fingers through his hair, fixing Harry with a bewildered stare._

"_Yeh don' know what yeh __are__?" he said finally._

_Uncle Vernon suddenly found his voice._

"_Stop!" he commanded. "Stop right there, sir! I forbid you to tell the boy anything!"_

Sirius snorted. "You don't forbid Hagrid from doing anything."

_A braver man than Vernon Dursley would have quailed under the furious look Hagrid now gave him; when Hagrid spoke, his every syllable trembled with rage._

"_You never told him? Never told him what was in the letter Dumbledore left fer him? I was there! I saw Dumbledore leave it,_

_Dursley! An' you've kept it from him all these years?"_

"_Kept __what __from me?" said Harry eagerly._

"_STOP! I FORBID YOU!" yelled Uncle Vernon in panic._

_Aunt Petunia gave a gasp of horror._

"_Ah, go boil yer heads, both of yeh," said Hagrid. "Harry—yer a wizard."_

_There was silence inside the hut. Only the sea and the whistling wind could be heard._

"_I'm a __what__?" gasped Harry._

"_A wizard, o' course," said Hagrid, sitting back down on the sofa, which groaned and sank even lower, "an' a thumpin' good'un, I'd say, once yeh've been trained up a bit. With a mum an' dad like yours, what else would yeh be? An' I reckon it's abou' time yeh read yer letter."_

"Finally!" The twins and Ginny cheered.

_Harry stretched out his hand at last to take the yellowish envelope, addressed in emerald green to Mr. H. Potter, The Floor, Hut-on-the-Rock, The Sea. He pulled out the letter and read:_

_HOGWARTS SCHOOL_

_of __WITCHCRAFT __and __WIZARDRY_

_Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore_

_(__Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,_

_Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards __)_

"Don't forget conceited, pompous, self righteous, arsehole." Harry muttered and everyone broke out laughing.

_Dear Mr. Potter,_

_We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment._

_Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Minerva McGonagall,_

_Deputy Headmistress_

_Questions exploded inside Harry's head like fireworks and he couldn't decide which to ask first. After a few minutes he stammered, "What does it mean, they await my owl?"_

Ginny giggled. "Seriously? That's your first question?"

"Hey! It was the last thing I read." Harry said back defensively.

"_Gallopin' Gorgons, that reminds me," said Hagrid, clapping a hand to his forehead with enough force to knock over a cart horse, and from yet another pocket inside his overcoat he pulled an owl—a real, live, rather ruffled-looking owl—a long quill, and a roll of parchment. With his tongue between his teeth he scribbled a note that Harry could read upside down:_

"Impressive, I can barley read it right side up." Severus said and Sirius, Luna and Remus nod their heads in agreement.

_Dear Professor Dumbledore,_

_Given Harry his letter._

_Taking him to buy his things tomorrow._

_Weather's horrible. Hope you're well._

_Hagrid_

_Hagrid rolled up the note, gave it to the owl, which clamped it in its beak, went to the door, and threw the owl out into the storm. Then he came back and sat down as though this was as normal as talking on the telephone._

"Well for us it is honey?" Bellatrix said simply and everyone looked at her funny. She huffed. "What?!"

_Harry realized his mouth was open and closed it quickly._

Ginny, Luna, Bellatrix and Narcissa giggled.

"_Where was I?" said Hagrid, but at that moment, Uncle Vernon, still ashen-faced but looking very angry, moved into the firelight._

"_He's not going," he said._

_Hagrid grunted._

"_I'd like ter see a great Muggle like you stop him," he said._

"_A what?" said Harry, interested._

"_A Muggle," said Hagrid, "it's what we call nonmagic folk like them. An' it's your bad luck you grew up in a family o' the biggest Muggles I ever laid eyes on."_

"Quite literally." Lucius mumbled to Narcissa's amusement.

"_We swore when we took him in we'd put a stop to that rubbish," said Uncle Vernon, "swore we'd stamp it out of him! Wizard indeed!"_

Shouts and growls filled the room when Sirius read the last statement, and Tom and Sirius where half way to the door when Harry noticed them. "Where are you two going?"

"Ummm...well you see..." Sirius stuttered.

"We may or may not have your family in Severus' basement." Tom finished bravely. Harry paled and Draco rubbed his hands along his back.

"They're here?" Harry sounded like he was gonna be sick. Everyone looked at him worried.

"Harry, honey, are you okay?" Draco asked and He came back to himself.

"Sirius, sit your ass down and you best be damned sure we will talk about this later." Harry said in his no nonsense voice. Sirius gulped and sat back in the chair. Tom, not wanting to agitate Harry further sat back down too. Draco wrapped his arms back around Harry and Sirius continued reading.

"_You __knew__?" said Harry. "You __knew __I'm a—a wizard?"_

"_Knew!" shrieked Aunt Petunia suddenly. "__Knew__! Of course we knew! How could you not be, my dratted sister being what she was? Oh, she got a letter just like that and disappeared off to that—that __school__—and came home every vacation with her pockets full of frog spawn, turning teacups into rats. I was the only one who saw her for what she was — a freak! But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily that, they were proud of having a witch in the family!"_

_She stopped to draw a deep breath and then went ranting on. It seemed she had been wanting to say all this for years._

"_Then she met that Potter at school and they left and got married and had you, and of course I knew you'd be just the same, just as strange, just as—as—__abnormal__—and then, if you please, she went and got herself blown up and we got landed with you!"_

"That's how you found out what happen to them?" Ginny asked incredulously. Harry didn't answer from his place in Draco's shoulder.

_Harry had gone very white. As soon as he found his voice he said, "Blown up? You told me they died in a car crash!"_

"_CAR CRASH!" roared Hagrid, jumping up so angrily that the_

_Dursleys scuttled back to their corner. "How could a car crash kill Lily an' James Potter? It's an outrage! A scandal! Harry Potter not knowin' his own story when every kid in our world knows his name!"_

"_But why? What happened?" Harry asked urgently._

_The anger faded from Hagrid's face. He looked suddenly anxious._

"Look I just wanna get this chapter over with so can we please, just no more commenting." Harry asked and everyone nodded not wanting to upset the still upset boy.

"_I never expected this," he said, in a low, worried voice. "I had no idea, when Dumbledore told me there might be trouble gettin' hold of yeh, how much yeh didn't know. Ah, Harry, I don' know if I'm the right person ter tell yeh—but someone's gotta-yeh can't go off ter Hogwarts not knowin'."_

_He threw a dirty look at the Dursleys._

"_Well, it's best yeh know as much as I can tell yeh — mind, I can't tell yeh everythin', it's a great myst'ry, parts of it..."_

_He sat down, stared into the fire for a few seconds, and then said, "It begins, I suppose, with — with a person called — but it's incredible yeh don't know his name, everyone in our world knows—"_

"_Who?"_

"_Well—I don' like sayin' the name if I can help it. No one does."_

"_Why not?"_

"_Gulpin' gargoyles, Harry, people are still scared. Blimey, this is difficult. See, there was this wizard who went...bad. As bad as you could go. Worse. Worse than worse. His name was..."_

_Hagrid gulped, but no words came out._

"_Could you write it down?" Harry suggested._

"_Nah — can't spell it. All right — __Voldemort.__" Hagrid shuddered._

"_Don' make me say it again. Anyway, this — this wizard,_

_about twenty years ago now, started lookin' fer followers. Got 'em, too — some were afraid, some just wanted a bit o' his power, 'cause he was gettin' himself power, all right. Dark days, Harry. Didn't know who ter trust, didn't dare get friendly with strange wizards or witches . . . terrible things happened. He was takin' over. 'Course, some stood up to him — an' he killed 'em. Horribly. One o' the only safe places left was Hogwarts. Reckon Dumbledore's the only one You-Know-Who was afraid of. Didn't dare try takin' the school, not jus' then, anyway._

"_Now, yer mum an' dad were as good a witch an' wizard as I ever knew. Head boy an' girl at Hogwarts in their day! Suppose the myst'ry is why You-Know-Who never tried to get 'em on his side before...probably knew they were too close ter Dumbledore ter want anythin' ter do with the Dark Side._

"_Maybe he thought he could persuade 'em...maybe he just wanted 'em outta the way. All anyone knows is, he turned up in the village where you was all living, on Halloween ten years ago. You was just a year old. He came ter yer house an'—an'—"_

Severus let out a strangled sob sound and Remus put his arm around his and pet his hair.

_Hagrid suddenly pulled out a very dirty, spotted handkerchief and blew his nose with a sound like a foghorn._

"_Sorry," he said. "But it's that sad — knew yer mum an' dad, an' nicer people yeh couldn't find — anyway..._

"_You-Know-Who killed 'em. An' then — an' this is the real_

_myst'ry of the thing — he tried to kill you, too. Wanted ter make a clean job of it, I suppose, or maybe he just liked killin' by then. But he couldn't do it. Never wondered how you got that mark on yer forehead? That was no ordinary cut. That's what yeh get when a powerful, evil curse touches yeh — took care of yer mum an' dad an' yer house, even — but it didn't work on you, an' that's why yer famous, Harry. No one ever lived after he decided ter kill 'em, no one except you, an' he'd killed some o' the best witches an' wizards of the age—the McKinnons, the Bones, the Prewetts—an' you was only a baby, an' you lived."_

_Something very painful was going on in Harry's mind. As Hagrid's story came to a close, he saw again the blinding flash of green light, more clearly than he had ever remembered it before — and he remembered something else, for the first time in his life: a high, cold, cruel laugh._

Harry shivered and almost everyone's eyes were watery.

_Hagrid was watching him sadly._

"_Took yeh from the ruined house myself, on Dumbledore's orders._

_Brought yeh ter this lot..."_

"_Load of old tosh," said Uncle Vernon. Harry jumped; he had almost forgotten that the Dursleys were there. Uncle Vernon certainly seemed to have got back his courage. He was glaring at Hagrid and his fists were clenched._

"_Now, you listen here, boy," he snarled, "I accept there's something strange about you, probably nothing a good beating wouldn't have cured—and as for all this about your parents, well, they were weirdos, no denying it, and the world's better off without them in my opinion—asked for all they got, getting mixed up with these wizarding types—just what I expected, always knew they'd come to a sticky end—"_

Remus and Sirius started growling again until Harry let out a sharp "Guys!"

_But at that moment, Hagrid leapt from the sofa and drew a battered pink umbrella from inside his coat. Pointing this at Uncle Vernon like a sword, he said, "I'm warning you, Dursley — I'm warning you—one more word..."_

_In danger of being speared on the end of an umbrella by a bearded giant, Uncle Vernon's courage failed again; he flattened himself against the wall and fell silent._

"_That's better," said Hagrid, breathing heavily and sitting back down on the sofa, which this time sagged right down to the floor._

_Harry, meanwhile, still had questions to ask, hundreds of them._

"_But what happened to Vol-, sorry—I mean, You-Know-Who?"_

"_Good question, Harry. Disappeared. Vanished. Same night he tried ter kill you. Makes yeh even more famous. That's the biggest myst'ry, see...he was gettin' more an' more powerful-why'd he go?_

"_Some say he died. Codswallop, in my opinion. Dunno if he had enough human left in him to die. Some say he's still out there,_

_bidin' his time, like, but I don' believe it. People who was on his side came back ter ours. Some of 'em came outta kinda trances. Don' reckon they could've done if he was comin' back._

"_Most of us reckon he's still out there somewhere but lost his powers. Too weak to carry on. 'Cause somethin' about you finished him, Harry. There was somethin' goin' on that night he hadn't counted on-__I __dunno what it was, no one does—but somethin' about you stumped him, all right."_

_Hagrid looked at Harry with warmth and respect blazing in his eyes, but Harry, instead of feeling pleased and proud, felt quite sure there had been a horrible mistake. A wizard? Him? How could he possibly be? He'd spent his life being clouted by Dudley, and bullied by Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon; if he was really a wizard, why hadn't they been turned into warty toads every time they'd tried to lock him in his cupboard? If he'd once defeated the greatest sorcerer in the world, how come Dudley had always been able to kick him around like a football?_

"_Hagrid," he said quietly, "I think you must have made a mistake. I don't think I can be a wizard."_

_To his surprise, Hagrid chuckled._

"_Not a wizard, eh? Never made things happen when you was scared or angry?"_

_Harry looked into the fire. Now he came to think about it...every odd thing that had ever made his aunt and uncle furious with him had happened when he, Harry, had been upset or angry...chased by Dudley's gang, he had somehow found himself out of their reach...dreading going to school with that ridiculous haircut, he'd managed to make it grow back...and the very last time Dudley had hit him, hadn't he got his revenge, without even realizing he was doing it? Hadn't he set a boa constrictor on him?_

_Harry looked back at Hagrid, smiling, and saw that Hagrid was positively beaming at him._

"_See?" said Hagrid. "Harry Potter, not a wizard—you wait, you'll be right famous at Hogwarts."_

_But Uncle Vernon wasn't going to give in without a fight._

"_Haven't I told you he's not going?" he hissed. "He's going to Stonewall High and he'll be grateful for it. I've read those letters and he needs all sorts of rubbish—spell books and wands and—"_

"_If he wants ter go, a great Muggle like you won't stop him,"_

_growled Hagrid. "Stop Lily an' James Potter's son goin' ter Hogwarts! Yer mad. His name's been down ever since he was born. He's off ter the finest school of witchcraft and wizardry in the world. Seven years there and he won't know himself. He'll be with youngsters of his own sort, fer a change, an' he'll be under the greatest headmaster Hogwarts ever had, Albus Dumbled—"_

"_I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL TO TEACH HIM MAGIC TRICKS!" yelled Uncle Vernon._

"Oh boy." Remus mumbled.

_But he had finally gone too far. Hagrid seized his umbrella and whirled it over his head, "NEVER—" he thundered, "—INSULT—ALBUS —DUMBLEDORE-IN—FRONT—OF—ME!"_

_He brought the umbrella swishing down through the air to point at Dudley — there was a flash of violet light, a sound like a firecracker, a sharp squeal, and the next second, Dudley was dancing on the spot with his hands clasped over his fat bottom, howling in pain. When he turned his back on them, Harry saw a curly pig's tail poking through a hole in his trousers._

The whole room was silent for a few moments and then everyone in the room burst out in laughter. Even Harry couldn't help but laugh at the memory.

_Uncle Vernon roared. Pulling Aunt Petunia and Dudley into the other room, he cast one last terrified look at Hagrid and slammed the door behind them._

_Hagrid looked down at his umbrella and stroked his beard._

"_Shouldn'ta lost me temper," he said ruefully, "but it didn't work anyway. Meant ter turn him into a pig, but I suppose he was so much like a pig anyway there wasn't much left ter do."_

_He cast a sideways look at Harry under his bushy eyebrows._

"_Be grateful if yeh didn't mention that ter anyone at Hogwarts," he said. "I'm—er—not supposed ter do magic, strictly speakin'._

_I was allowed ter do a bit ter follow yeh an' get yer letters to yeh an' stuff—one o' the reasons I was so keen ter take on the job—"_

"Way to make me feel good Hagrid." Harry snorted sarcastically.

"_Why aren't you supposed to do magic?" asked Harry._

"_Oh, well—I was at Hogwarts meself but I—er—got expelled, ter tell yeh the truth. In me third year. They snapped me wand in half an' everything. But Dumbledore let me stay on as gamekeeper. Great man, Dumbledore."_

"_Why were you expelled?"_

"_It's gettin' late and we've got lots ter do tomorrow," said Hagrid loudly. "Gotta get up ter town, get all yer books an' that."_

_He took off his thick black coat and threw it to Harry._

"_You can kip under that," he said. "Don' mind if it wriggles a bit, I think I still got a couple o' dormice in one o' the pockets."_

"That's the end of the chapter. Who wants to read next?"

"What's the chapter title?" Harry asked quickly.

Sirius looked and answered "Diagon Alley."

Harry smirked and said "Give it to Draco, He'll read."

Draco looked over to his parents and gulped. He was gonna be in so much trouble when these books were over.


	6. Chapter 6

Draco swallowed loudly and started. "This chapter is called _**DIAGON ALLEY**_

_**Harry woke early the next morning. Although he could tell it was daylight, he kept his eyes shut tight.**_

"_**It was a dream," he told himself firmly. "I dreamed a giant called Hagrid came to tell me I was going to a school for wizards. When I open my eyes I'll be at home in my cupboard."**_

_**There was suddenly a loud tapping noise.**_

_**And there**__**'**__**s Aunt Petunia knocking on the door, **__**Harry thought, his heart sinking. But he still didn't open his eyes. It had been such a good dream.**_

_**Tap. Tap. Tap.**_

Bet it's an owl." Sirius says to Remus he just shushes him and Sirius pouts.

"_**All right," Harry mumbled, "I'm getting up."**_

_**He sat up and Hagrid's heavy coat fell off him. The hut was full of sunlight, the storm was over, Hagrid himself was asleep on the collapsed sofa, and there was an owl rapping its claw on the window, a newspaper held in its beak.**_

"Told you." Sirius said triumphantly.

"No one was arguing with you Sirius." Severus rolls his eyes.

_**Harry scrambled to his feet, so happy he felt as though a large balloon was swelling inside him. He went straight to the window and jerked it open. The owl swooped in and dropped the newspaper on top of Hagrid, who didn't wake up. The owl then fluttered onto the floor and began to attack Hagrid's coat.**_

"_**Don't do that."**_

_**Harry tried to wave the owl out of the way, but it snapped its beak fiercely at him and carried on savaging the coat.**_

"_**Hagrid!" said Harry loudly. "There's an owl—"**_

"_**Pay him," Hagrid grunted into the sofa.**_

"_**What?"**_

"_**He wants payin' fer deliverin' the paper. Look in the pockets."**_

_**Hagrid's coat seemed to be made of nothing **__**but **__**pockets—bunches of keys, slug pellets, balls of string, peppermint humbugs, teabags...finally, Harry pulled out a handful of strange-looking coins.**_

"_**Give him five Knuts," said Hagrid sleepily.**_

"He doesn't know anything about our money. He doesn't know what a Knut is." Bellatrix sneered at the book. Fred took her hand in his and said, "Bella, sweetie, you're talking to a book." And everyone broke out in laughter.

"_**Knuts?"**_

"_**The little bronze ones."**_

_**Harry counted out five little bronze coins, and the owl held out his leg so Harry could put the money into a small leather pouch tied to it. Then he flew off through the open window.**_

_**Hagrid yawned loudly, sat up, and stretched.**_

"_**Best be off, Harry, lots ter do today, gotta get up ter London an' buy all yer stuff fer school."**_

_Harry was turning over the wizard coins and looking at them._

_He had just thought of something that made him feel as though the happy balloon inside him had got a puncture._

The twins gasped dramatically clutching their hearts. "Not the happy balloon!" They cried out together before falling back on the couch.

"_**Um — Hagrid?"**_

"_**Mm?" said Hagrid, who was pulling on his huge boots.**_

"_**I haven't got any money — and you heard Uncle Vernon last night...he won't pay for me to go and learn magic."**_

"_**Don't worry about that," said Hagrid, standing up and scratching his head. "D'yeh think yer parents didn't leave yeh anything?"**_

"_**But if their house was destroyed—"**_

Everyone looked at Harry oddly.

"We don't keep money in our houses." Lucius said.

Harry turned bright red. "I know that now okay." Then burrowed into Draco's side.

"_**They didn' keep their gold in the house, boy! Nah, first stop fer us is Gringotts. Wizards' bank. Have a sausage, they're not bad cold — an' I wouldn' say no teh a bit o' yer birthday cake, neither."**_

Severus snorted. "Real subtle."

"I don't think Hagrid even knows what subtle is." Ginny giggled.

"_**Wizards have **__**banks**__**?"**_

"_**Just the one. Gringotts. Run by goblins."**_

_**Harry dropped the bit of sausage he was holding.**_

"_**Goblins**__**?"**_

"They freak me out." Harry said shivering.

"I know what you mean. Every time I go to Gringotts I try to get in and out as quickly as possible." Narcissa replied.

"Yea, they really aren't very pleasant creatures." Remus responded.

"_**Yeah—so yeh'd be mad ter try an' rob it, I'll tell yeh that.**_

_**Never mess with goblins, Harry. Gringotts is the safest place in the world fer anything yeh want ter keep safe—'cept maybe Hogwarts. As a matter o' fact, I gotta visit Gringotts anyway Fer Dumbledore. Hogwarts business." Hagrid drew himself up proudly. "He usually gets me ter do important stuff fer him. Fetchin' you—gettin' things from Gringotts—knows he can trust me, see.**_

"_**Got everythin'? Come on, then."**_

_**Harry followed Hagrid out onto the rock. The sky was quite clear now and the sea gleamed in the sunlight. The boat Uncle Vernon had hired was still there, with a lot of water in the bottom after the storm.**_

"_**How did you get here?" Harry asked, looking around for another boat.**_

"_**Flew," said Hagrid.**_

"_**Flew**__**?"**_

"_**Yeah—but we'll go back in this. Not s'pposed ter use magic now I've got yeh."**_

_**They settled down in the boat, Harry still staring at Hagrid, trying to imagine him flying.**_

"How did you imagine him flying?" George asked.

"I pictured him flapping his arms like wings." Harry answered, turning red. The twins, Ginny, Sirius and Draco burst out laughing and Harry smiled.

"_**Seems a shame ter row, though," said Hagrid, giving Harry another of his sideways looks. "If I was ter — er — speed things up a bit, would yeh mind not mentionin' it at Hogwarts?"**_

"Hey does anyone know why Hagrid got expelled?" Sirius asks. "Every time James and I tried to ask he changed the subject real quick." Harry looked over to Tom who was determinedly looking at the ceiling.

"No, I think it's just one of those things we'll never know." Remus replied and Harry smirked into Draco's chest. Everyone was gonna learn a lot from these books. The twins will even learn that two of their idols, The Marauders, where sitting in the same room as them.

"_**Of course not," said Harry, eager to see more magic. Hagrid pulled out the pink umbrella again, tapped it twice on the side of the boat, and they sped off toward land.**_

"_**Why would you be mad to try and rob Gringotts?" Harry**_

_**asked.**_

"_**Spells—enchantments," said Hagrid, unfolding his newspaper**_

_**as he spoke. "They say there's dragons guardin' the highsecurity**_

_**vaults. And then yeh gotta find yer way — Gringotts is**_

_**hundreds of miles under London, see. Deep under the Underground.**_

_**Yeh'd die of hunger tryin' ter get out, even if yeh did manage**_

_**ter get yer hands on summat."**_

_**Harry sat and thought about this while Hagrid read his newspaper, the **__**Daily Prophet. **__**Harry had learned from Uncle Vernon that people liked to be left alone while they did this, but it was very difficult, he'd never had so many questions in his life.**_

"_**Ministry o' Magic messin' things up as usual," Hagrid muttered, turning the page.**_

Lucius snorted. "Aren't they always?"

"_**There's a Ministry of Magic?" Harry asked, before he could**_

_**stop himself.**_

" '_**Course," said Hagrid. "They wanted Dumbledore fer Minister, o' course, but he'd never leave Hogwarts, so old Cornelius**_

_**Fudge got the job. Bungler if ever there was one. So he pelts Dumbledore with owls every morning, askin' fer advice."**_

"_**But what does a Ministry of Magic **__**do**__**?"**_

"_**Well, their main job is to keep it from the Muggles that there's still witches an' wizards up an' down the country."**_

"_**Why?"**_

"_**Why**__**? Blimey, Harry, everyone'd be wantin' magic solutions to their problems. Nah, we're best left alone."**_

"Exactly! See, He understands, and those are the ones that will accept magic. Most muggles don't." Tom exclaimed. Harry just looked at him before deciding to save his questions for lunch.

_**At this moment the boat bumped gently into the harbor wall.**_

_**Hagrid folded up his newspaper, and they clambered up the stone steps onto the street.**_

_**Passersby stared a lot at Hagrid as they walked through the little town to the station. Harry couldn't blame them. Not only was Hagrid twice as tall as anyone else, he kept pointing at perfectly ordinary things like parking meters and saying loudly, "See that, Harry? Things these Muggles dream up, eh?"**_

"_**Hagrid," said Harry, panting a bit as he ran to keep up, "did you say there are **__**dragons **__**at Gringotts?"**_

"_**Well, so they say," said Hagrid. "Crikey, I'd like a dragon."**_

Both Harry and Draco groaned as everyone looked at them, confused. Harry nudged Draco to keep reading.

"_**You'd **__**like **__**one?"**_

"_**Wanted one ever since I was a kid—here we go."**_

_**They had reached the station. There was a train to London in five minutes' time. Hagrid, who didn't understand "Muggle money," as he called it, gave the bills to Harry so he could buy their tickets.**_

_**People stared more than ever on the train. Hagrid took up two seats and sat knitting what looked like a canary-yellow circus tent.**_

"_**Still got yer letter, Harry?" he asked as he counted stitches.**_

_**Harry took the parchment envelope out of his pocket.**_

"_**Good," said Hagrid. "There's a list there of everything yeh need."**_

_**Harry unfolded a second piece of paper he hadn't noticed the night before, and read:**_

_**HOGWARTS SCHOOL **__**of **__**WITCHCRAFT **__**and **__**WIZARDRY**_

_**Uniform**_

_**First-year students will require:**_

_**1. Three sets of plain work robes (black)**_

_**2. One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear**_

_**3. One pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar)**_

_**4. One winter cloak (black, silver fastenings)**_

_**Please note that all pupils' clothes should carry name tags **_

_**Course books**_

_**All students should have a copy of each of the following:**_

_**The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1)**_

_**by Miranda Goshawk**_

_**A History of Magic **__**by Bathilda Bagshot**_

_**Magical Theory **__**by Adalbert Waffling**_

_**A Beginners' Guide to Transfiguration **__**by Emeric Switch**_

_**One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi**_

_**by Phyllida Spore**_

_**Magical Drafts and Potions **__**by Arsenius Jigger**_

_**Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them**_

_**by Newt Scamander**_

_**The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection**_

_**by Quentin Trimble**_

_**other equipment**_

_**1 wand**_

_**1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)**_

_**1 set glass or crystal phials**_

_**1 telescope**_

_**1 set brass scales**_

_**Students may also bring an owl OR a cat OR a toad**_

_**PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICKS**_

"_**Can we buy all this in London?" Harry wondered aloud.**_

"_**If yeh know where to go," said Hagrid.**_

_**Harry had never been to London before. Although Hagrid seemed to know where he was going, he was obviously not used to getting there in an ordinary way. He got stuck in the ticket barrier on the Underground, and complained loudly that the seats were too small and the trains too slow.**_

"_**I don't know how the Muggles manage without magic," he said as they climbed a broken-down escalator that led up to a bustling road lined with shops. **_

_**Hagrid was so huge that he parted the crowd easily; all Harry had to do was keep close behind him. They passed book shops and music stores, hamburger restaurants and cinemas, but nowhere that looked as if it could sell you a magic wand. This was just an ordinary street full of ordinary people. Could there really be piles of wizard gold buried miles beneath them? Were there really shops that sold spell books and broomsticks? Might this not all be some huge joke that the Dursleys had cooked up? If Harry hadn't known that the Dursleys had no sense of humor, he might have thought so; yet somehow, even though everything Hagrid had told him so far was unbelievable, Harry couldn't help trusting him.**_

"_**This is it," said Hagrid, coming to a halt, "the Leaky Cauldron. It's a famous place."**_

_**It was a tiny, grubby-looking pub. If Hagrid hadn't pointed it out, Harry wouldn't have noticed it was there. The people hurrying by didn't glance at it. Their eyes slid from the big book shop on one side to the record shop on the other as if they couldn't see the Leaky Cauldron at all.**_

"They can't, anti muggle spells." Severus remarked.

_**In fact, Harry had the most peculiar feeling that only he and Hagrid could see it. Before he could mention this, Hagrid had steered him inside.**_

_**For a famous place, it was very dark and shabby. A few old women were sitting in a corner, drinking tiny glasses of sherry. One of them was smoking a long pipe. A little man in a top hat was talking to the old bartender, who was quite bald and looked like a toothless walnut. The low buzz of chatter stopped when they walked in. Everyone seemed to know Hagrid; they waved and smiled at him, and the bartender reached for a glass, saying, "The usual, Hagrid?"**_

"_**Can't, Tom, I'm on Hogwarts business," said Hagrid, clapping his great hand on Harry's shoulder and making Harry's knees buckle.**_

"_**Good Lord," said the bartender, peering at Harry, "is this—can this be—?"**_

"And so it begins." Harry whined. "Hey everyone, lets lets stare and point and make the eleven year old that just learned hes a wizard uncomfortable."

"'Ry, honey calm down." Draco said while rubbing soothing circles on Harry's back. Meanwhile Severus was beating himself up in his head. _'How could I have judged him like that? Could I have been any more wrong? And yet he still thinks of me like his father, how can he?'_

_**The Leaky Cauldron had suddenly gone completely still and silent.**_

"_**Bless my soul," whispered the old bartender, "Harry Potter...what an honor."**_

_**He hurried out from behind the bar, rushed toward Harry and seized his hand, tears in his eyes.**_

"_**Welcome back, Mr. Potter, welcome back."**_

_**Harry didn't know what to say. Everyone was looking at him.**_

_**The old woman with the pipe was puffing on it without realizing it had gone out. Hagrid was beaming.**_

_**Then there was a great scraping of chairs and the next moment,**_

_**Harry found himself shaking hands with everyone in the Leaky Cauldron.**_

"_**Doris Crockford, Mr. Potter, can't believe I'm meeting you at last."**_

"_**So proud, Mr. Potter, I'm just so proud."**_

"_**Always wanted to shake your hand — I'm all of a flutter."**_

"_**Delighted, Mr. Potter, just can't tell you, Diggle's the name,**_

_**Dedalus Diggle."**_

"_**I've seen you before!" said Harry, as Dedalus Diggle's top hat fell off in his excitement. "You bowed to me once in a shop."**_

"He bowed to you in a shop?" Ginny asked, laughing.

"Yea, I remember 'cause Aunt Petunia freaked out and dragged us straight home."

"_**He remembers!" cried Dedalus Diggle, looking around at everyone. "Did you hear that? He remembers me!"**_

_**Harry shook hands again and again—Doris Crockford kept coming back for more.**_

_**A pale young man made his way forward, very nervously. One of his eyes was twitching.**_

"_**Professor Quirrell!" said Hagrid. "Harry, Professor Quirrell will be one of your teachers at Hogwarts."**_

Both Harry and Tom twitched at the reminder of Quirrell and Draco cast Harry a questioning glance. Harry just whispered, "You'll see."

"_**P-P-Potter," stammered Professor Quirrell, grasping Harry's hand, "c-can't t-tell you how p-pleased I am to meet you."**_

Everyone who had been a student or teacher when Quirrell was professor all groaned loudly.

"Merlin that stutter was obnoxious. And the guy was a total idiot. His class was worthless." Fred exclaimed throwing his head back on the couch. They nodded in agreement.

"_**What sort of magic do you teach, Professor Quirrell?"**_

"_**D-Defense Against the D-D-Dark Arts," muttered Professor**_

_**Quirrell, as though he'd rather not think about it. "N-not that you n-need it, eh, P-P-Potter?" He laughed nervously. "You'll be g-getting all your equipment, I suppose? I've g-got to p-pick up a new b-book on vampires, m-myself." He looked terrified at the very thought.**_

_**But the others wouldn't let Professor Quirrell keep Harry to himself. It took almost ten minutes to get away from them all. At last, Hagrid managed to make himself heard over the babble.**_

"_**Must get on—lots ter buy. Come on, Harry."**_

_**Doris Crockford shook Harry's hand one last time, and Hagrid led them through the bar and out into a small, walled courtyard, where there was nothing but a trash can and a few weeds.**_

_**Hagrid grinned at Harry.**_

"_**Told yeh, didn't I? Told yeh you was famous. Even Professor**_

_**Quirrell was tremblin' ter meet yeh — mind you, he's usually tremblin'."**_

"_**Is he always that nervous?"**_

"_**Oh, yeah. Poor bloke. Brilliant mind. He was fine while he was studyin' outta books but then he took a year off ter get some firsthand experience. . . . They say he met vampires in the Black Forest, and there was a nasty bit o' trouble with a hag-never been the same since. Scared of the students, scared of his own subject—now, where's me umbrella?"**_

_**Vampires? Hags? Harry's head was swimming. Hagrid, meanwhile, was counting bricks in the wall above the trash can.**_

"_**Three up...two across..." he muttered. "Right, stand back, Harry."**_

_**He tapped the wall three times with the point of his umbrella.**_

_**The brick he had touched quivered—it wriggled—in the middle, a small hole appeared—it grew wider and wider—a second later they were facing an archway large enough even for Hagrid, an archway onto a cobbled street that twisted and turned out of sight.**_

"_**Welcome," said Hagrid, "to Diagon Alley."**_

_**He grinned at Harry's amazement. They stepped through the archway. Harry looked quickly over his shoulder and saw the archway shrink instantly back into solid wall.**_

_**The sun shone brightly on a stack of cauldrons outside the nearest shop. Cauldrons—All Sizes—Copper, Brass, Pewter, Silver—Self-Stirring—Collapsible, said a sign hanging over them.**_

"_**Yeah, you'll be needin' one," said Hagrid, "but we gotta get yer money first."**_

_**Harry wished he had about eight more eyes. He turned his head in every direction as they walked up the street, trying to look at everything at once: the shops, the things outside them, the people doing their shopping. A plump woman outside an Apothecary was shaking her head as they passed, saying, "Dragon liver, sixteen Sickles an ounce, they're mad."**_

The twins and Ginny starting laughing like mad.

"That-was-mum." Fred managed to stutter out.

_**A low, soft hooting came from a dark shop with a sign saying**_

_**Eeylops Owl Emporium—Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown, and Snowy. Several boys of about Harry's age had their noses pressed against a window with broomsticks in it. "Look," Harry heard one of them say, "the new Nimbus Two Thousand—fastest ever—"**_

_**There were shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange silver instruments Harry had never seen before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels' eyes, tottering piles of spell books, quills, and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon...**_

"_**Gringotts," said Hagrid.**_

_**They had reached a snowy white building that towered over the other little shops. Standing beside its burnished bronze doors, wearing a uniform of scarlet and gold, was—**_

"_**Yeah, that's a goblin," said Hagrid quietly as they walked up the white stone steps toward him. The goblin was about a head shorter than Harry. He had a swarthy, clever face, a pointed beard and, Harry noticed, very long fingers and feet. He bowed as they walked inside. Now they were facing a second pair of doors, silver this time, with words engraved upon them:**_

_**Enter, stranger, but take heed**_

_**Of what awaits the sin of greed,**_

_**For those who take, but do not earn,**_

_**Must pay most dearly in their turn.**_

_**So if you seek beneath our floors**_

_**A treasure that was never yours, Thief, you have been warned, beware Of finding more than treasure there.**_

When Draco came up to the poem almost everyone in the room started reciting it.

"I always loved that poem." Luna said in her dreamy voice.

"_**Like I said, yeh'd be mad ter try an' rob it," said Hagrid.**_

_**A pair of goblins bowed them through the silver doors and they were in a vast marble hall. About a hundred more goblins were sitting on high stools behind a long counter, scribbling in large ledgers, weighing coins in brass scales, examining precious stones through eyeglasses. There were too many doors to count leading off the hall, and yet more goblins were showing people in and out of these. Hagrid and Harry made for the counter.**_

"_**Morning," said Hagrid to a free goblin. "We've come ter take some money outta Mr. Harry Potter's safe."**_

"_**You have his key, sir?"**_

"_**Got it here somewhere," said Hagrid, and he started emptying his pockets onto the counter, scattering a handful of moldy dog biscuits over the goblins book of numbers.**_

"Ewwww." Narcissa wrinkled her nose up.

_**The goblin wrinkled his nose. Harry watched the goblin on their right weighing a pile of rubies as big as glowing coals.**_

"_**Got it," said Hagrid at last, holding up a tiny golden key.**_

_**The goblin looked at it closely.**_

"_**That seems to be in order."**_

"_**An' I've also got a letter here from Professor Dumbledore," said Hagrid importantly, throwing out his chest. "It's about the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen."**_

Remus chuckled. "Oh Hagrid, you have just peaked the Potter curiosity."

"Hey!" Harry shouted in mock indignation.

_**The goblin read the letter carefully.**_

"_**Very well," he said, handing it back to Hagrid, "I will have someone take you down to both vaults. Griphook!"**_

_**Griphook was yet another goblin. Once Hagrid had crammed all the dog biscuits back inside his pockets, he and Harry followed Griphook toward one of the doors leading off the hall.**_

"_**What's the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen?"**_

_**Harry asked.**_

Everyone laughed and Harry shrugged. "what can I say? I'm an Evans, we are curious people." Severus looked at Harry with poorly veiled curiosity of his own. _'Evans? Why is he going by lily's name?'_

"_**Can't tell yeh that," said Hagrid mysteriously. "Very secret.**_

_**Hogwarts business. Dumbledore's trusted me. More'n my job's worth ter tell yeh that."**_

_**Griphook held the door open for them. Harry, who had expected more marble, was surprised. They were in a narrow stone passageway lit with flaming torches. It sloped steeply downward and there were little railway tracks on the floor. Griphook whistled and a small cart came hurtling up the tracks toward them. They climbed in—Hagrid with some difficulty—and were off.**_

_**At first they just hurtled through a maze of twisting passages.**_

_**Harry tried to remember, left, right, right, left, middle fork, right, left, but it was impossible. The rattling cart seemed to know its own way, because Griphook wasn't steering.**_

_**Harry's eyes stung as the cold air rushed past them, but he kept them wide open. Once, he thought he saw a burst of fire at the end of a passage and twisted around to see if it was a dragon, but too late—they plunged even deeper, passing an underground lake where huge stalactites and stalagmites grew from the ceiling and floor.**_

"_**I never know," Harry called to Hagrid over the noise of the cart, "what's the difference between a stalagmite and a stalactite?"**_

"Stalagmite points up and stalactite points down. G for ground and C for ceiling." Severus says using his teacher voice.

"_**Stalagmite's got an 'm' in it," said Hagrid. "An' don' ask me questions just now, I think I'm gonna be sick."**_

The whole room is quiet for a second and then almost everyone is laughing. Fred, George and Sirius are laughing so hard they have tears streaming down there face.

_**He did look very green, and when the cart stopped at last beside a small door in the passage wall, Hagrid got out and had to lean against the wall to stop his knees from trembling.**_

_**Griphook unlocked the door. A lot of green smoke came billowing out, and as it cleared, Harry gasped. Inside were mounds of gold coins. Columns of silver. Heaps of little bronze Knuts.**_

"_**All yours," smiled Hagrid.**_

_**All Harry's—it was incredible. The Dursleys couldn't have known about this or they'd have had it from him faster than blinking.**_

_**How often had they complained how much Harry cost them to keep? And all the time there had been a small fortune belonging to him, buried deep under London.**_

_**Hagrid helped Harry pile some of it into a bag.**_

"_**The gold ones are Galleons," he explained. "Seventeen silver**_

_**Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle, it's easy enough. Right, that should be enough fer a couple o' terms, we'll keep the rest safe for yeh." He turned to Griphook. "Vault seven hundred and thirteen now, please, and can we go more slowly?"**_

"_**One speed only," said Griphook.**_

_**They were going even deeper now and gathering speed. The air became colder and colder as they hurtled round tight corners. They went rattling over an underground ravine, and Harry leaned over the side to try to see what was down at the dark bottom, but Hagrid groaned and pulled him back by the scruff of his neck.**_

_**Vault seven hundred and thirteen had no keyhole.**_

"_**Stand back," said Griphook importantly. He stroked the door gently with one of his long fingers and it simply melted away.**_

"_**If anyone but a Gringotts goblin tried that, they'd be sucked through the door and trapped in there," said Griphook.**_

"_**How often do you check to see if anyone's inside?" Harry asked.**_

"_**About once every ten years," said Griphook with a rather nasty**_

_**grin.**_

_**Something really extraordinary had to be inside this top security vault, Harry was sure, and he leaned forward eagerly, expecting to see fabulous jewels at the very least — but at first he thought it was empty. Then he noticed a grubby little package wrapped up in brown paper lying on the floor. Hagrid picked it up and tucked it deep inside his coat. Harry longed to know what it was, but knew better than to ask.**_

"_**Come on, back in this infernal cart, and don't talk to me on the way back, it's best if I keep me mouth shut," said Hagrid.**_

_**One wild cart ride later they stood blinking in the sunlight outside Gringotts. Harry didn't know where to run first now that he had a bag full of money. He didn't have to know how many Galleons there were to a pound to know that he was holding more money than he'd had in his whole life—more money than even Dudley had ever had.**_

"_**Might as well get yer uniform," said Hagrid, nodding toward Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. "Listen, Harry, would**_

_**yeh mind if I slipped off fer a pick-me-up in the Leaky Cauldron? I hate them Gringotts carts." He did still look a bit sick, so Harry entered Madam Malkin's shop alone, feeling nervous.**_

Draco started squirming nervously at the mention of the robe shop. Obviously he remembered the first time he and Harry met.

Harry took pity on him and turned to his 'misfits'.

"Alright, listen up." He started using his authority voice. "I can't speak for Tom and his but I can for you guys so listen closing because instating a new rule. There will be no getting payback or revenge on someone for something they did in these books. That means no pranks either." Saying this he looked directly at the twins and Sirius. "We are all starting with a clean slate here. Everything we read has either already happened or has yet to happen so just leave it be."

When Harry finished Tom spoke up. "The same goes for you guys. Harry is right, we're all on the same side now."

_**Madam Malkin was a squat, smiling witch dressed all in mauve.**_

"_**Hogwarts, dear?" she said, when Harry started to speak. "Got the lot here—another young man being fitted up just now, in fact."**_

_**In the back of the shop, a boy with a pale, pointed face**_

Everyone turned to look at Draco as his face turned from pink to red.

_**was standing on a footstool while a second witch pinned up his long black robes. Madam Malkin stood Harry on a stool next to him, slipped a long robe over his head, and began to pin it to the right length.**_

"_**Hello," said the boy, "Hogwarts, too?"**_

"_**Yes," said Harry.**_

"_**My father's next door buying my books and mother's up the street looking at wands," said the boy. He had a bored, drawling voice. "Then I'm going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I don't see why first years can't have their own. I think I'll bully father into getting me one and I'll smuggle it in somehow."**_

"DRACO!" Narcissa yelled appalled and Draco hurried to keep reading.

_**Harry was strongly reminded of Dudley.**_

"Hey!" Draco yelled. "I'm nothing like that filthy muggle idiot."

"_**Have **__**you **__**got your own broom?" the boy went on.**_

"_**No," said Harry.**_

"_**Play Quidditch at all?"**_

"_**No," Harry said again, wondering what on earth Quidditch**_

_**could be.**_

"_**I **__**do—Father says it's a crime if I'm not picked to play for**_

_**my House, and I must say, I agree. Know what House you'll be in**_

_**yet?"**_

"_**No," said Harry, feeling more stupid by the minute.**_

"_**Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they, but I know I'll be in Slytherin, all our family have been — imagine being in Hufflepuff, I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?"**_

"_**Mmm," said Harry, wishing he could say something a bit more interesting.**_

"_**I say, look at that man!" said the boy suddenly, nodding toward the front window. Hagrid was standing there, grinning at Harry and pointing at two large ice creams to show he couldn't come in.**_

"_**That's Hagrid," said Harry, pleased to know something the boy didn't. "He works at Hogwarts."**_

"_**Oh," said the boy, "I've heard of him. He's a sort of servant, isn't he?"**_

"_**He's the gamekeeper," said Harry. He was liking the boy less and less every second.**_

"_**Yes, exactly. I heard he's a sort of **__**savage **__**— lives in a hut on the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tries to do magic, and ends up setting fire to his bed."**_

Suddenly Sirius and Remus were laughing loudly.

"That was James our third year. He was trying to impress Lily and messed up the spell somehow."

"_**I think he's brilliant," said Harry coldly.**_

"_**Do **__**you?" said the boy, with a slight sneer. "Why is he with you? Where are your parents?"**_

"_**They're dead," said Harry shortly. He didn't feel much like going into the matter with this boy.**_

"_**Oh, sorry," said the other, not sounding sorry at all. "But they were **__**our **__**kind, weren't they?"**_

"Draco!" Narcissa whined into her hands and Draco turned even redder.

"_**They were a witch and wizard, if that's what you mean."**_

"_**I really don't think they should let the other sort in, do you?**_

_**They're just not the same, they've never been brought up to know our ways. Some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they get the letter, imagine. I think they should keep it in the old wizarding families. What's your surname, anyway?"**_

_**But before Harry could answer, Madam Malkin said, "That's you done, my dear," and Harry, not sorry for an excuse to stop talking to the boy, hopped down from the footstool.**_

"_**Well, I'll see you at Hogwarts, I suppose," said the drawling boy.**_

"Uh, thank god." Ginny said and Harry shot her a warning look.

_**Harry was rather quiet as he ate the ice cream Hagrid had bought him (chocolate and raspberry with chopped nuts).**_

"_**What's up?" said Hagrid.**_

"_**Nothing," Harry lied. They stopped to buy parchment and quills. Harry cheered up a bit when he found a bottle of ink that changed color as you wrote. When they had left the shop, he said, "Hagrid, what's Quidditch?"**_

"_**Blimey, Harry, I keep forgettin' how little yeh know — not**_

_**knowin' about Quidditch!"**_

"_**Don't make me feel worse," said Harry. He told Hagrid about the pale boy in Madam Malkin's.**_

"—_**and he said people from Muggle families shouldn't even be allowed in—"**_

"_**Yer not **__**from **__**a Muggle family. If he'd known who yeh **__**were**__**—he's grown up knowin' yer name if his parents are wizardin' folk. You saw what everyone in the Leaky Cauldron was like when they**_

_**saw yeh. Anyway, what does he know about it, some o' the best I**_

_**ever saw were the only ones with magic in 'em in a long line o'**_

_**Muggles—look at yer mum! Look what she had fer a sister!"**_

Severus snorted. "Pet was always that way when someone wasn't her definition of normal." Almost everyone but Harry and Tom looked at Severus in surprise.

"_**So what **__**is **__**Quidditch?"**_

"_**It's our sport. Wizard sport. It's like—like soccer in the**_

_**Muggle world—everyone follows Quidditch—played up in the air on broomsticks and there's four balls—sorta hard ter explain the rules."**_

"_**And what are Slytherin and Hufflepuff?"**_

"_**School Houses. There's four. Everyone says Hufflepuff are a lot**_

_**o' duffers, but—"**_

"_**I bet I'm in Hufflepuff," said Harry gloomily.**_

"_**Better Hufflepuff than Slytherin," said Hagrid darkly. "There's not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin. You-Know-Who was one."**_

"Hey!" Shouted every Slytherin in the room.

"There is nothing wrong with Slytherin." Harry said and everyone turned to look at him. Harry wondered if the book would tell about almost being sorted into Slytherin. Harry had never told anyone, at first he had been ashamed but now he just wished he'd let the hat put him there.

"_**Vol-, sorry — You-Know-Who was at Hogwarts?"**_

"_**Years an' years ago," said Hagrid.**_

_**They bought Harry's school books in a shop called Flourish and**_

_**Blotts where the shelves were stacked to the ceiling with books as large as paving stones bound in leather; books the size of postage stamps in covers of silk; books full of peculiar symbols and a few books with nothing in them at all. Even Dudley, who never read anything, would have been wild to get his hands on some of these. Hagrid almost had to drag Harry away from **__**Curses and Countercurses**__** (**__**Bewitch Your Friends and Befuddle Your Enemies with the**____**Latest Revenges: Hair Loss, Jelly-Legs, Tongue-Tying and Much, Much**____**More**__**) by Professor Vindictus Viridian.**_

"_**I was trying to find out how to curse Dudley."**_

"_**I'm not sayin' that's not a good idea, but yer not ter use magic in the Muggle world except in very special circumstances," said Hagrid. "An' anyway, yeh couldn' work any of them curses yet, yeh'll need a lot more study before yeh get ter that level."**_

_**Hagrid wouldn't let Harry buy a solid gold cauldron, either ("It says pewter on yer list"), but they got a nice set of scales for weighing potion ingredients and a collapsible brass telescope. Then they visited the Apothecary, which was fascinating enough to make up for its horrible smell, a mixture of bad eggs and rotted cabbages. Barrels of slimy stuff stood on the floor; jars of herbs, dried roots, and bright powders lined the walls; bundles of feathers, strings of fangs, and snarled claws hung from the ceiling. While Hagrid asked the man behind the counter for a supply of some basic potion ingredients for Harry, Harry himself examined silver unicorn horns at twenty-one Galleons each and minuscule, glittery-black beetle eyes (five Knuts a scoop).**_

"Potions was the class I was most looking forward to." Harry said and Severus dropped his head on Remus' shoulder mumbling "Of course it was." Miserably.

_**Outside the Apothecary, Hagrid checked Harry's list again.**_

"_**Just yer wand left—oh yeah, an' I still haven't got yeh a birthday present."**_

_**Harry felt himself go red.**_

"_**You don't have to—"**_

"_**I know I don't have to. Tell yeh what, I'll get yer animal. Not a toad, toads went outta fashion years ago, yeh'd be laughed at—an' I don' like cats, they make me sneeze. I'll get yer an owl. All the kids want owls, they're dead useful, carry yer mail an' everythin'."**_

_**Twenty minutes later, they left Eeylops Owl Emporium, which had been dark and full of rustling and flickering, jewel-bright eyes. Harry now carried a large cage that held a beautiful snowy owl, fast asleep with her head under her wing.**_

"Yay! Hedwig" The twins, Ginny and Luna cheered.

_**He couldn't stop stammering his thanks, sounding just like Professor Quirrell.**_

Harry scowled at his comparison to that idiot.

"_**Don' mention it," said Hagrid gruffly. "Don' expect you've had a lotta presents from them Dursleys. Just Ollivanders left now—only place fer wands, Ollivanders, and yeh gotta have the best wand."**_

_**A magic wand...this was what Harry had been really looking forward to.**_

_**The last shop was narrow and shabby. Peeling gold letters over the door read Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 b.c. A single wand lay on a faded purple cushion in the dusty window.**_

"It's supposed to be Merlin's wand." Remus said.

_**A tinkling bell rang somewhere in the depths of the shop as they stepped inside. It was a tiny place, empty except for a single, spindly chair that Hagrid sat on to wait. Harry felt strangely as though he had entered a very strict library; he swallowed a lot of new questions that had just occurred to him and looked instead at the thousands of narrow boxes piled neatly right up to the ceiling. For some reason, the back of his neck prickled. The very dust and silence in here seemed to tingle with some secret magic.**_

Everyone looked at Harry again.

"You could feel the magic?" Tom asked incredulously.

"Yea, I can feel it in most magical places like that, like Hogwarts. I can feel it all over the castle."

Everyone kept staring and Harry nudged Draco to start again.

"_**Good afternoon," said a soft voice. Harry jumped. Hagrid must have jumped, too, because there was a loud crunching noise and he got quickly off the spindly chair.**_

_**An old man was standing before them, his wide, pale eyes shining like moons through the gloom of the shop.**_

"_**Hello," said Harry awkwardly. **_

"_**Ah yes," said the man. "Yes, yes. I thought I'd be seeing you soon. Harry Potter." It wasn't a question. "You have your mother's eyes. It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wand. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charm work."**_

_**Mr. Ollivander moved closer to Harry. Harry wished he would blink. Those silvery eyes were a bit creepy.**_

"_**Your father, on the other hand, favored a mahogany wand.**_

_**Eleven inches. Pliable. A little more power and excellent for transfiguration. Well, I say your father favored it — it's really the wand that chooses the wizard, of course."**_

_**Mr. Ollivander had come so close that he and Harry were almost**_

_**nose to nose. Harry could see himself reflected in those misty eyes.**_

"_**And that's where..."**_

_**Mr. Ollivander touched the lightning scar on Harry's forehead with a long, white finger.**_

"_**I'm sorry to say I sold the wand that did it," he said softly. "Thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Powerful wand, very powerful,**_

_**and in the wrong hands...well, if I'd known what that wand was going out into the world to do..."**_

_**He shook his head and then, to Harry's relief, spotted Hagrid.**_

"_**Rubeus! Rubeus Hagrid! How nice to see you again...Oak, sixteen inches, rather bendy, wasn't it?"**_

"_**It was, sir, yes," said Hagrid.**_

"_**Good wand, that one. But I suppose they snapped it in half when you got expelled?" said Mr. Ollivander, suddenly stern.**_

"_**Er—yes, they did, yes," said Hagrid, shuffling his feet. "I've still got the pieces, though," he added brightly.**_

"_**But you don't **__**use **__**them?" said Mr. Ollivander sharply.**_

"_**Oh, no, sir," said Hagrid quickly. Harry noticed he gripped his pink umbrella very tightly as he spoke.**_

"_**Hmmm," said Mr. Ollivander, giving Hagrid a piercing look.**_

"_**Well, now—Mr. Potter. Let me see." He pulled a long tape measure with silver markings out of his pocket. "Which is your wand arm?"**_

"_**Er—well, I'm right-handed," said Harry.**_

"_**Hold out your arm. That's it." He measured Harry from shoulder to finger, then wrist to elbow, shoulder to floor, knee to armpit and round his head. As he measured, he said, "Every Ollivander wand has a core of a powerful magical substance, Mr. Potter. We use unicorn hairs, phoenix tail feathers, and the heartstrings of dragons. No two Ollivander wands are the same, just as no two unicorns, dragons, or phoenixes are quite the same. And of course, you will never get such good results with another wizard's wand."**_

_**Harry suddenly realized that the tape measure, which was measuring between his nostrils, was doing this on its own. Mr. Ollivander was flitting around the shelves, taking down boxes.**_

"_**That will do," he said, and the tape measure crumpled into a heap on the floor. "Right then, Mr. Potter. Try this one. Beechwood and dragon heartstring. Nine inches. Nice and flexible. Just take it and give it a wave."**_

_**Harry took the wand and (feeling foolish) waved it around a bit,**_

_**but Mr. Ollivander snatched it out of his hand almost at once.**_

"_**Maple and phoenix feather. Seven inches. Quite whippy.**_

_**Try—"**_

_**Harry tried—but he had hardly raised the wand when it, too, was snatched back by Mr. Ollivander.**_

"_**No, no—here, ebony and unicorn hair, eight and a half inches, springy. Go on, go on, try it out."**_

_**Harry tried. And tried. He had no idea what Mr. Ollivander was waiting for. The pile of tried wands was mounting higher and higher on the spindly chair, but the more wands Mr. Ollivander pulled from the shelves, the happier he seemed to become.**_

Severus chuckled. "I tried 27 wands before I got mine."

"I tried 15." Bellatrix responded.

"I tried 43." Tom said "How many did you end up trying Harry?"

"69." Draco snickered into Harry's hair.

"_**Tricky customer, eh? Not to worry, we'll find the perfect match here somewhere—I wonder, now—yes, why not—unusual combination—holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple."**_

_**Harry took the wand. He felt a sudden warmth in his fingers.**_

_**He raised the wand above his head, brought it swishing down through the dusty air and a stream of red and gold sparks shot from the end like a firework, throwing dancing spots of light on to the walls. Hagrid whooped and clapped and Mr. Ollivander cried, "Oh, bravo! Yes, indeed, oh, very good. Well, well, well...how curious...how very curious..."**_

_**He put Harry's wand back into its box and wrapped it in brown**_

_**paper, still muttering, "Curious...curious..."**_

"_**Sorry," said Harry, "but **__**what's **__**curious?"**_

_**Mr. Ollivander fixed Harry with his pale stare.**_

"_**I remember every wand I've ever sold, Mr. Potter. Every single wand. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave another feather — just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother—why, its brother gave you that scar."**_

Harry and Toms eyes went wide as everyone turn to stare open mouthed at the two.

"Ummm...Draco...please keep reading."

_**Harry swallowed.**_

"_**Yes, thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember...I think we must expect great things from you, Mr. Potter... After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things—terrible, yes, but great."**_

_**Harry shivered. He wasn't sure he liked Mr. Ollivander too much. He paid seven gold Galleons for his wand, and Mr. Ollivander bowed them from his shop.**_

_**The late afternoon sun hung low in the sky as Harry and Hagrid made their way back down Diagon Alley, back through the wall, back through the Leaky Cauldron, now empty. Harry didn't speak at all as they walked down the road; he didn't even notice how much people were gawking at them on the Underground, laden as they were with all their funny-shaped packages, with the snowy owl asleep in its cage on Harry's lap. Up another escalator, out into Paddington station; Harry only realized where they were when Hagrid tapped him on the shoulder.**_

"_**Got time fer a bite to eat before yer train leaves," he said.**_

_**He bought Harry a hamburger and they sat down on plastic seats to eat them. Harry kept looking around. Everything looked so strange, somehow.**_

"_**You all right, Harry? Yer very quiet," said Hagrid.**_

_**Harry wasn't sure he could explain. He'd just had the best birthday of his life—and yet—he chewed his hamburger, trying to find the words.**_

"_**Everyone thinks I'm special," he said at last. "All those people in the Leaky Cauldron, Professor Quirrell, Mr. Ollivander...but I don't know anything about magic at all. How can they expect great things? I'm famous and I can't even remember what I'm famous for. I don't know what happened when Vol-, sorry—I mean, the night my parents died."**_

_**Hagrid leaned across the table. Behind the wild beard and eyebrows he wore a very kind smile.**_

"_**Don' you worry, Harry. You'll learn fast enough. Everyone starts at the beginning at Hogwarts, you'll be just fine. Just be yerself. I know it's hard. Yeh've been singled out, an' that's always hard. But yeh'll have a great time at Hogwarts—I did—still do, 'smatter of fact."**_

_**Hagrid helped Harry on to the train that would take him back to the Dursleys, then handed him an envelope.**_

"_**Yer ticket fer Hogwarts," he said. "First o' September—King's Cross—it's all on yer ticket. Any problems with the Dursleys, send me a letter with yer owl, she'll know where to find me...See yeh soon, Harry."**_

_**The train pulled out of the station. Harry wanted to watch Hagrid until he was out of sight; he rose in his seat and pressed his nose against the window, but he blinked and Hagrid had gone.**_

"Wait he didn't tell you how to get onto the platform!" Sirius yelled.

"I get on the platform just fine." Harry replies grinning at Ginny.

"Alright, let's read two more chapters then we'll have lunch. Who wants to make lunch?"

Harry, Luna and Draco raised their hands.

"What are we the only ones who know how to cook?" Harry asked, amused.

"I'll help too." Severus said.

"And Ginny don't think I forgot that you're on kitchen duty this week." Harry added and Ginny gave him an innocent smile that didn't fool anyone.

"Okay who wants to read next?"Draco asked holding out the book.

"I want to read if no one else does please." Luna's dreamy voice floated from beside Sirius.


	7. Chapter 7

Luna cleared her throat and started her quiet voice carrying through the room.

_**THE JOURNEY FROM PLATFORM NINE AND THREE-QUARTERS**_

_**Harry's last month with the Dursleys wasn't fun. True,**_

_**Dudley was now so scared of Harry he wouldn't stay in the same room, while Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon didn't shut**_

_**Harry in his cupboard, force him to do anything, or shout at him—in fact, they didn't speak to him at all. Half terrified, half furious, they acted as though any chair with Harry in it were empty. Although this was an improvement in many ways, it did become a bit depressing after a while.**_

"That sounds awfully depressing." Narcissa muttered and Harry just nodded his head.

_**Harry kept to his room, with his new owl for company. He had decided to call her Hedwig, a name he had found in **__**A History of**____**Magic. **__**His school books were very interesting. He lay on his bed reading late into the night, Hedwig swooping in and out of the open window as she pleased. It was lucky that Aunt Petunia didn't come in to vacuum anymore, because Hedwig kept bringing back dead mice. Every night before he went to sleep, Harry ticked off another day on the piece of paper he had pinned to the wall, counting down to September the first.**_

"I think everyone does that their first year."

_**On the last day of August he thought he'd better speak to his aunt and uncle about getting to King's Cross station the next day, so he went down to the living room where they were watching a quiz show on television. He cleared his throat to let them know he was there, and Dudley screamed and ran from the room.**_

"_**Er—Uncle Vernon?"**_

_**Uncle Vernon grunted to show he was listening.**_

"_**Er—I need to be at King's Cross tomorrow to—to go to**_

_**Hogwarts."**_

_**Uncle Vernon grunted again.**_

"_**Would it be all right if you gave me a lift?"**_

_**Grunt. Harry supposed that meant yes.**_

"_**Thank you."**_

"I didn't know you spoke troll 'Ry." Fred joked.

"Actually a fairly accurate description for him." Draco mused and most everyone laughed.

_**He was about to go back upstairs when Uncle Vernon actually spoke.**_

"_**Funny way to get to a wizards' school, the train. Magic carpets all got punctures, have they?"**_

"Those are illegal in England. Actually they're illegal everywhere but the middle east." Remus stated matter of factly and Sirius rolled his eyes.

_**Harry didn't say anything.**_

"_**Where is this school, anyway?"**_

"_**I don't know," said Harry, realizing this for the first time. He pulled the ticket Hagrid had given him out of his pocket.**_

"_**I just take the train from platform nine and three-quarters at eleven o'clock," he read.**_

_**His aunt and uncle stared.**_

"_**Platform what?"**_

"_**Nine and three-quarters." **_

"_**Don't talk rubbish," said Uncle Vernon. "There is no platform nine and three-quarters."**_

"Petunia knows how to get on to the platform, she's been there before." Severus sneered at the book.

"_**It's on my ticket."**_

"_**Barking," said Uncle Vernon, "howling mad, the lot of them.**_

_**You'll see. You just wait. All right, we'll take you to King's Cross. We're going up to London tomorrow anyway, or I wouldn't bother."**_

"_**Why are you going to London?" Harry asked, trying to keep things friendly.**_

"_**Taking Dudley to the hospital," growled Uncle Vernon. "Got to have that ruddy tail removed before he goes to Smeltings."**_

Everyone smiled at the reminder of Dudley's tail.

_**Harry woke at five o'clock the next morning and was too excited and nervous to go back to sleep. He got up and pulled on his jeans because he didn't want to walk into the station in his wizard's robes — he'd change on the train.**_

"James did that our seventh year. He got a lot of strange looks." Sirius laughed and Remus smiled.

_**He checked his Hogwarts list yet again to make sure he had everything he needed, saw that Hedwig was shut safely in her cage, and then paced the room, waiting for the Dursleys to get up. Two hours later, Harry's huge, heavy trunk had been loaded into the Dursleys' car, Aunt Petunia had talked Dudley into sitting next to Harry, and they had set off.**_

_**They reached King's Cross at half past ten. Uncle Vernon dumped Harry's trunk onto a cart and wheeled it into the station for him.**_

"That's awful nice of him." Bellatrix said. Fred and George shook their heads.

_**Harry thought this was strangely kind until Uncle Vernon stopped dead, facing the platforms with a nasty grin on his face.**_

"_**Well, there you are, boy. Platform nine—platform ten. Your platform should be somewhere in the middle, but they don't seem to have built it yet, do they?"**_

"Never mind then." She scowled.

_**He was quite right, of course. There was a big plastic number nine over one platform and a big plastic number ten over the one next to it, and in the middle, nothing at all.**_

"_**Have a good term," said Uncle Vernon with an even nastier smile. He left without another word. Harry turned and saw the**_

_**Dursleys drive away.**_

"They are the worst kind of muggles." Tom said unhappily. Harry had to agree thinking of them locked in the basement and smirked.

_**All three of them were laughing. Harry's mouth went rather dry. What on earth was he going to do? He was starting to attract a lot of funny looks, because of Hedwig. He'd have to ask someone.**_

_**He stopped a passing guard, but didn't dare mention platform nine and three-quarters. The guard had never heard of Hogwarts and when Harry couldn't even tell him what part of the country it was in, he started to get annoyed, as though Harry was being stupid on purpose. Getting desperate, Harry asked for the train that left at eleven o'clock, but the guard said there wasn't one. In the end the guard strode away, muttering about time wasters. Harry was now trying hard not to panic. According to the large clock over the arrivals board, he had ten minutes left to get on the train to Hogwarts and he had no idea how to do it; he was stranded in the middle of a station with a trunk he could hardly lift, a pocket full of wizard money, and a large owl.**_

_**Hagrid must have forgotten to tell him something you had to do, like tapping the third brick on the left to get into Diagon Alley. He wondered if he should get out his wand and start tapping the ticket inspector's stand between platforms nine and ten.**_

"_**That would most definitely get you noticed." Lucius chuckled. **_

_**At that moment a group of people passed just behind him and he caught a few words of what they were saying.**_

"—_**packed with Muggles, of course—"**_

Harry scowled at the mention of Weasleys but smiled at the twins and Ginny.

_**Harry swung round. The speaker was a plump woman who was talking to four boys, all with flaming red hair. Each of them was pushing a trunk like Harry's in front of him — and they had an **__**owl.**_

"Yes because the owl makes them wizards." Everyone laughed.

_**Heart hammering, Harry pushed his cart after them. They stopped and so did he, just near enough to hear what they were saying.**_

"_**Now, what's the platform number?" said the boys' mother.**_

"_**Nine and three-quarters!" piped a small girl, also red-headed, who was holding her hand, "Mom, can't I go..." **_

Ginny turned bright red and Tom and Harry laughed.

"_**You're not old enough, Ginny, now be quiet. All right, Percy, you go first."**_

_**What looked like the oldest boy marched toward platforms nine and ten. Harry watched, careful not to blink in case he missed it—but just as the boy reached the dividing barrier between the two platforms, a large crowd of tourists came swarming in front of him and by the time the last backpack had cleared away, the boy had vanished.**_

"_**Fred, you next," the plump woman said.**_

"_**I'm not Fred, I'm George," said the boy. "Honestly, woman, you call yourself our mother? Can't you **__**tell **__**I'm George?"**_

"_**Sorry, George, dear."**_

"_**Only joking, I am Fred," said the boy, and off he went.**_

"No you weren't." Harry stated and everyone stared.

"You can tell us apart?" They asked together.

"Yep." He answered, popping the p.

_**His twin called after him to hurry up, and he must have done so, because a second later, he had gone—but how had he done it?**_

_**Now the third brother was walking briskly toward the barrier—he was almost there—and then, quite suddenly, he wasn't anywhere.**_

_**There was nothing else for it.**_

"_**Excuse me," Harry said to the plump woman.**_

"Awwww...so polite Harry." Remus said in a baby voice.

"Shut up Rem." Harry grumbled.

"_**Hello, dear," she said. "First time at Hogwarts? Ron's new, too."**_

_**She pointed at the last and youngest of her sons. He was tall, thin, and gangling, with freckles, big hands and feet, and a long nose. **_

The kids all broke up into hysterics.

"_**Yes," said Harry. "The thing is—the thing is, I don't know how to—"**_

"_**How to get onto the platform?" she said kindly, and Harry nodded.**_

"_**Not to worry," she said. "All you have to do is walk straight at the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Don't stop and don't be scared you'll crash into it, that's very important. Best do it at a bit of a run if you're nervous. Go on, go now before Ron."**_

"_**Er—okay," said Harry.**_

_**He pushed his trolley around and stared at the barrier. It looked very solid.**_

"It is." Harry muttered. Everyone looked at him. "You'll see."

_**He started to walk toward it. People jostled him on their way to platforms nine and ten. Harry walked more quickly. He was going to smash right into that barrier and then he'd be in trouble-leaning forward on his cart, he broke into a heavy run—the barrier was coming nearer and nearer—he wouldn't be able to stop—the cart was out of control—he was a foot away—he closed his eyes ready for the crash—**_

_**It didn't come...he kept on running...he opened his eyes.**_

_**A scarlet steam engine was waiting next to a platform packed with people. A sign overhead said Hogwarts Express, eleven o'clock. Harry looked behind him and saw a wrought-iron archway where the barrier had been, with the words **__**Platform Nine and Three-Quarters **__**on it. He had done it.**_

_**Smoke from the engine drifted over the heads of the chattering crowd, while cats of every color wound here and there between their legs. Owls hooted to one another in a disgruntled sort of way over the babble and the scraping of heavy trunks.**_

_**The first few carriages were already packed with students, some hanging out of the window to talk to their families, some fighting over seats. Harry pushed his cart off down the platform in search of an empty seat. He passed a round-faced boy who was saying, "Gran, I've lost my toad again."**_

"_**Oh, **__**Neville,**__**" he heard the old woman sigh.**_

Everyone who knew Neville laughed, shaking their heads.

_**A boy with dreadlocks was surrounded by a small crowd.**_

Fred and George cheered for their friend.

"_**Give us a look, Lee, go on."**_

_**The boy lifted the lid of a box in his arms, and the people around him shrieked and yelled as something inside poked out a long, hairy leg.**_

_**Harry pressed on through the crowd until he found an empty compartment near the end of the train. He put Hedwig inside first and then started to shove and heave his trunk toward the train door. He tried to lift it up the steps but could hardly raise one end and twice he dropped it painfully on his foot.**_

Harry beamed at the twins.

"_**Want a hand?" It was one of the red-haired twins he'd followed**_

_**through the barrier.**_

"_**Yes, please," Harry panted.**_

"_**Oy, Fred! C'mere and help!"**_

_**With the twins' help, Harry's trunk was at last tucked away in a corner of the compartment. **_

"_**Thanks," said Harry, pushing his sweaty hair out of his eyes.**_

"_**What's that?" said one of the twins suddenly, pointing at**_

_**Harry's lightning scar.**_

"_**Blimey," said the other twin. "Are you—?"**_

"_**He **__**is,**__**" said the first twin. "Aren't you?" he added to Harry.**_

"_**What?" said Harry.**_

"_**Harry Potter,**__**" chorused the twins.**_

"_**Oh, him," said Harry. "I mean, yes, I am."**_

"Oh Harry." Draco chuckled as everyone else laughed.

_**The two boys gawked at him, and Harry felt himself turning red. Then, to his relief, a voice came floating in through the train's open door.**_

"_**Fred? George? Are you there?"**_

"_**Coming, Mom."**_

_**With a last look at Harry, the twins hopped off the train.**_

_**Harry sat down next to the window where, half hidden, he could watch the red-haired family on the platform and hear what they were saying.**_

"Spying Harry?" Severus smirked at him and Harry just smirked back.

_**Their mother had just taken out her handkerchief.**_

"_**Ron, you've got something on your nose."**_

_**The youngest boy tried to jerk out of the way, but she grabbed him and began rubbing the end of his nose.**_

"_**Mom**__**—geroff." He wriggled free.**_

"_**Aaah, has ickle Ronnie got somefink on his nosie?" said one of the twins.**_

"_**Shut up," said Ron.**_

"_**Where's Percy?" said their mother.**_

"_**He's coming now."**_

_**The oldest boy came striding into sight. He had already changed into his billowing black Hogwarts robes, and Harry noticed a shiny red and gold badge on his chest with the letter **__**P **__**on it.**_

"_**Can't stay long, Mother," he said. "I'm up front, the prefects have got two compartments to themselves—"**_

"_**Oh, are you a **__**prefect, **__**Percy?" said one of the twins, with an air of great surprise. "You should have said something, we had no idea."**_

"_**Hang on; I think I remember him saying something about it," said the other twin. "Once—"**_

"_**Or twice—"**_

"_**A minute—"**_

"_**All summer—"**_

"_**Oh, shut up," said Percy the Prefect.**_

"_**How come Percy gets new robes, anyway?" said one of the twins.**_

"_**Because he's a **__**prefect,**__**" said their mother fondly. "All right, dear, well, have a good term—send me an owl when you get there."**_

_**She kissed Percy on the cheek and he left. Then she turned to the twins.**_

"_**Now, you two—this year, you behave yourselves. If I get one more owl telling me you've—you've blown up a toilet or—"**_

"Oh Molly." Sirius said slowly shaking his head chuckling.

"_**Blown up a toilet? We've never blown up a toilet."**_

"_**Great idea though, thanks, Mom."**_

"_**It's **__**not funny. **__**And look after Ron."**_

"_**Don't worry, ickle Ronniekins is safe with us."**_

"_**Shut up," said Ron again. He was almost as tall as the twins already and his nose was still pink where his mother had rubbed it.**_

"_**Hey, Mom, guess what? Guess who we just met on the train?"**_

_**Harry leaned back quickly so they couldn't see him looking.**_

"_**You know that black-haired boy who was near us in the station?**_

_**Know who he is?"**_

"_**Who?"**_

"_**Harry Potter**__**!"**_

_**Harry heard the little girl's voice.**_

"_**Oh, Mom, can I go on the train and see him, Mom, oh please..."**_

Ginny turned red again and the twins snickered.

"_**You've already seen him, Ginny, and the poor boy isn't something you goggle at in a zoo. Is he really, Fred? How do you know?"**_

"_**Asked him. Saw his scar. It's really there—like lightning."**_

"_**Poor **__**dear**__**—no wonder he was alone, I wondered. He was ever so polite when he asked how to get onto the platform."**_

"_**Never mind that, do you think he remembers what You-Know-**_

_**Who looks like?"**_

_**Their mother suddenly became very stern.**_

"_**I forbid you to ask him, Fred. No, don't you dare. As though he**_

_**needs reminding of that on his first day at school."**_

"_**All right, keep your hair on."**_

_**A whistle sounded.**_

"_**Hurry up!" their mother said, and the three boys clambered onto the train. They leaned out of the window for her to kiss them good-bye, and their younger sister began to cry.**_

"_**Don't, Ginny, we'll send you loads of owls."**_

"_**We'll send you a Hogwarts toilet seat."**_

"I never did get that." Ginny said pouting.

"_**George**__**!"**_

"Fred." Harry said and the twins stared open mouthed.

"_**Only joking, Mom."**_

_**The train began to move. Harry saw the boys' mother waving and their sister, half laughing, half crying, running to keep up with the train until it gathered too much speed, then she fell back and waved.**_

_**Harry watched the girl and her mother disappear as the train rounded the corner. Houses flashed past the window. Harry felt a great leap of excitement. He didn't know what he was going to—but it had to be better than what he was leaving behind.**_

_**The door of the compartment slid open and the youngest redheaded boy came in.**_

"_**Anyone sitting there?" he asked, pointing at the seat opposite**_

_**Harry. "Everywhere else is full."**_

"Yea right." Harry mumbled into Draco's shoulder as Draco tightened his hold on Harry.

_**Harry shook his head and the boy sat down. He glanced at**_

_**Harry and then looked quickly out of the window, pretending he hadn't looked. Harry saw he still had a black mark on his nose.**_

"_**Hey, Ron."**_

_**The twins were back.**_

"_**Listen, we're going down the middle of the train—Lee Jordan's got a giant tarantula down there."**_

"_**Right," mumbled Ron.**_

"_**Harry," said the other twin, "did we introduce ourselves? Fred and George Weasley. And this is Ron, our brother. See you later, then."**_

"_**Bye," said Harry and Ron. The twins slid the compartment door shut behind them.**_

"_**Are you really Harry Potter?" Ron blurted out.**_

_**Harry nodded.**_

"_**Oh—well, I thought it might be one of Fred and George's jokes," said Ron. "And have you really got—you know..."**_

_**He pointed at Harry's forehead.**_

_**Harry pulled back his bangs to show the lightning scar. Ron stared.**_

"_**So that's where You-Know-Who—?"**_

"_**Yes," said Harry, "but I can't remember it."**_

"_**Nothing?" said Ron eagerly.**_

"_**Well — I remember a lot of green light, but nothing else."**_

"_**Wow," said Ron. He sat and stared at Harry for a few moments, then, as though he had suddenly realized what he was doing, he looked quickly out of the window again.**_

"_**Are all your family wizards?" asked Harry, who found Ron just as interesting as Ron found him.**_

"_**Er—yes, I think so," said Ron. "I think Mom's got a second cousin who's an accountant, but we never talk about him."**_

"_**So you must know loads of magic already."**_

_**The Weasleys were clearly one of those old wizarding families the pale boy in Diagon Alley had talked about.**_

"You compared them to us?!" Draco squawked indignantly.

"_**I heard you went to live with Muggles," said Ron. "What are they like?"**_

"_**Horrible—well, not all of them. My aunt and uncle and cousin are, though. Wish I'd had three wizard brothers."**_

"_**Five," said Ron. For some reason, he was looking gloomy. "I'm the sixth in our family to go to Hogwarts. You could say I've got a lot to live up to. Bill and Charlie have already left — Bill was head boy and Charlie was captain of Quidditch. Now Percy's a prefect. Fred and George mess around a lot, but they still get really good marks and everyone thinks they're really funny. Everyone expects me to do as well as the others, but if I do, it's no big deal, because they did it first. You never get anything new, either, with five brothers. I've got Bill's old robes, Charlie's old wand, and Percy's old rat."**_

_**Ron reached inside his jacket and pulled out a fat gray rat, which was asleep.**_

Harry, Remus and Sirius growled.

"_**His name's Scabbers and he's useless, he hardly ever wakes up.**_

_**Percy got an owl from my dad for being made a prefect, but they couldn't aff—I mean, I got Scabbers instead."**_

_**Ron's ears went pink. He seemed to think he'd said too much, because he went back to staring out of the window.**_

_**Harry didn't think there was anything wrong with not being able to afford an owl. After all, he'd never had any money in his life until a month ago, and he told Ron so, all about having to wear Dudley's old clothes and never getting proper birthday presents. This seemed to cheer Ron up.**_

"_**...and until Hagrid told me, I didn't know anything about being**_

_**a wizard or about my parents or Voldemort—"**_

_**Ron gasped.**_

"_**What?" said Harry.**_

"_**You said You-Know-Who's name**__**!" said Ron, sounding both shocked and impressed. "I'd have thought you, of all people—"**_

"_**I'm not trying to be **__**brave **__**or anything, saying the name," said**_

_**Harry, "I just never knew you shouldn't. See what I mean? I've got loads to learn...I bet," he added, voicing for the first time something that had been worrying him a lot lately, "I bet I'm the worst in the class."**_

Tom snorted. "As if."

"_**You won't be. There's loads of people who come from Muggle families and they learn quick enough."**_

_**While they had been talking, the train had carried them out of London. Now they were speeding past fields full of cows and sheep. They were quiet for a time, watching the fields and lanes flick past.**_

_**Around half past twelve there was a great clattering outside in the corridor and a smiling, dimpled woman slid back their door and said, "Anything off the cart, dears?"**_

_**Harry, who hadn't had any breakfast, leapt to his feet, but Ron's ears went pink again and he muttered that he'd brought sandwiches. Harry went out into the corridor.**_

_**He had never had any money for candy with the Dursleys, and now that he had pockets rattling with gold and silver he was ready to buy as many Mars Bars as he could carry — but the woman didn't have Mars Bars.**_

"What's a Mars bar?" Bellatrix asked.

"Muggle chocolate." Surprisingly it was Lucius who answered.

"Okay..." Sirius said.

_**What she did have were Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, Chocolate Frogs,**_

_**Pumpkin Pasties, Cauldron Cakes, Licorice Wands, and a number of other strange things Harry had never seen in his life. Not wanting to miss anything, he got some of everything and paid the woman eleven silver Sickles and seven bronze Knuts.**_

_**Ron stared as Harry brought it all back in to the compartment and tipped it onto an empty seat.**_

"_**Hungry, are you?"**_

"_**Starving," said Harry, taking a large bite out of a pumpkin pasty.**_

_**Ron had taken out a lumpy package and unwrapped it. There were four sandwiches inside. He pulled one of them apart and said, "She always forgets I don't like corned beef."**_

"_**Swap you for one of these," said Harry, holding up a pasty. "Go on—"**_

"_**You don't want this, it's all dry," said Ron. "She hasn't got much time," he added quickly, "you know, with five of us."**_

"_**Go on, have a pasty," said Harry, who had never had anything to share before or, indeed, anyone to share it with. It was a nice feeling, sitting there with Ron, eating their way through all Harry's pasties, cakes, and candies (the sandwiches lay forgotten).**_

"_**What are these?" Harry asked Ron, holding up a pack of Chocolate Frogs. "They're not **__**really **__**frogs, are they?" He was starting to feel that nothing would surprise him.**_

"_**No," said Ron. "But see what the card is. I'm missing Agrippa."**_

"_**What?"**_

"_**Oh, of course, you wouldn't know—Chocolate Frogs have cards inside them, you know, to collect—famous witches and wizards. I've got about five hundred, but I haven't got Agrippa or**_

_**Ptolemy."**_

_**Harry unwrapped his Chocolate Frog and picked up the card. It showed a man's face. He wore half-moon glasses, had a long, crooked nose, and flowing silver hair, beard, and mustache. Underneath the picture was the name Albus Dumbledore.**_

"_**So **__**this **__**is Dumbledore!" said Harry.**_

"_**Don't tell me you'd never heard of Dumbledore!" said Ron.**_

"_**Can I have a frog? I might get Agrippa—thanks—"**_

_**Harry turned over his card and read:**_

_**ALBUS DUMBLEDORE **_

_**currently headmaster of Hogwarts**_

_**Considered by many the greatest wizard of modern times,**_

_**Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the Dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel. Professor Dumbledore enjoys chamber music and tenpin bowling.**_

"I still can't believe I had the answer that whole time." Harry said shaking his head.

_**Harry turned the card back over and saw, to his astonishment, that Dumbledore's face had disappeared.**_

"_**He's gone!"**_

"_**Well, you can't expect him to hang around all day," said Ron.**_

"_**He'll be back. No, I've got Morgana again and I've got about six of her...do you want it? You can start collecting."**_

_**Ron's eyes strayed to the pile of Chocolate Frogs waiting to be unwrapped.**_

"_**Help yourself," said Harry. "But in, you know, the Muggle world, people just stay put in photos."**_

"_**Do they? What, they don't move at all?" Ron sounded amazed.**_

"_**Weird**__**!"**_

_**Harry stared as Dumbledore sidled back into the picture on his card and gave him a small smile. Ron was more interested in eating the frogs than looking at the Famous Witches and Wizards cards, but Harry couldn't keep his eyes off them. Soon he had not only Dumbledore and Morgana, but Hengist of Woodcraft, Alberic Grunnion, Circe, Paracelsus, and Merlin. He finally tore his eyes away from the druidess Cliodna, who was scratching her nose, to open a bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans.**_

George grimaced.

"_**You want to be careful with those," Ron warned Harry. "When they say every flavor, they **__**mean **__**every flavor—you know, you get all the ordinary ones like chocolate and peppermint and marmalade, but then you can get spinach and liver and tripe. George reckons he had a booger-flavored one once."**_

George shivered. "I did."

_**Ron picked up a green bean, looked at it carefully, and bit into a corner.**_

"_**Bleaaargh—see? Sprouts."**_

_**They had a good time eating the Every Flavor Beans. Harry got toast, coconut, baked bean, strawberry, curry, grass, coffee, sardine, and was even brave enough to nibble the end off a funny gray one Ron wouldn't touch, which turned out to be pepper.**_

_**The countryside now flying past the window was becoming wilder. The neat fields had gone. Now there were woods, twisting rivers, and dark green hills.**_

_**There was a knock on the door of their compartment and the round-faced boy Harry had passed on platform nine and three quarters came in. He looked tearful.**_

"_**Sorry," he said, "but have you seen a toad at all?"**_

_**When they shook their heads, he wailed, "I've lost him! He keeps getting away from me!"**_

"_**He'll turn up," said Harry.**_

"_**Yes," said the boy miserably. "Well, if you see him..."**_

_**He left.**_

"_**Don't know why he's so bothered," said Ron. "If I'd brought a toad I'd lose it as quick as I could. Mind you, I brought Scabbers, so I can't talk."**_

_**The rat was still snoozing on Ron's lap.**_

"Rat bastard." Remus growled.

"_**He might have died and you wouldn't know the difference," said Ron in disgust. "I tried to turn him yellow yesterday to make him more interesting, but the spell didn't work. I'll show you, look..." **_

_**He rummaged around in his trunk and pulled out a very battered-looking wand. It was chipped in places and something white was glinting at the end.**_

"_**Unicorn hair's nearly poking out. Anyway—"**_

_**He had just raised his wand when the compartment door slid open again. The toadless boy was back, but this time he had a girl with him. She was already wearing her new Hogwarts robes.**_

"_**Has anyone seen a toad? Neville's lost one," she said. She had a bossy sort of voice, lots of bushy brown hair, and rather large front teeth.**_

"_**We've already told him we haven't seen it," said Ron, but the girl wasn't listening, she was looking at the wand in his hand.**_

"_**Oh, are you doing magic? Let's see it, then."**_

_**She sat down. Ron looked taken aback.**_

"_**Er—all right."**_

_**He cleared his throat.**_

"_**Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow,**_

_**Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow.**__**"**_

Everyone broke out in peals of laughter.

"I can't believe he actually tried it." George choked out.

_**He waved his wand, but nothing happened. Scabbers stayed gray and fast asleep.**_

"_**Are you sure that's a real spell?" said the girl. "Well, it's not very good, is it? I've tried a few simple spells just for practice and it's all worked for me. Nobody in my family's magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it's the very best school of witchcraft there is, I've heard—I've learned all our course books by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough—I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?"**_

"God I hate it when she does that." Harry complained.

_**She said all this very fast.**_

_**Harry looked at Ron, and was relieved to see by his stunned face that he hadn't learned all the course books by heart either.**_

"_**I'm Ron Weasley," Ron muttered.**_

"_**Harry Potter," said Harry.**_

"_**Are you really?" said Hermione. "I know all about you, of course—I got a few extra books for background reading, and you're in **__**Modern Magical History **__**and **__**The Rise and Fall of the Dark**____**Arts **__**and **__**Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century.**__**"**_

"_**Am I?" said Harry, feeling dazed.**_

"_**Goodness, didn't you know, I'd have found out everything I could if it was me," said Hermione. "Do either of you know what**_

_**House you'll be in? I've been asking around, and I hope I'm in**_

_**Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best; I hear Dumbledore himself was in it, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad...Anyway, we'd better go and look for Neville's toad. You two had better change, you know, I expect we'll be there soon."**_

_**And she left, taking the toadless boy with her.**_

"_**Whatever House I'm in, I hope she's not in it," said Ron. He threw his wand back into his trunk. "Stupid spell — George gave it to me, bet he knew it was a dud."**_

"_**What House are your brothers in?" asked Harry.**_

"_**Gryffindor," said Ron. Gloom seemed to be settling on him again. "Mom and Dad were in it, too. I don't know what they'll say if I'm not. I don't suppose Ravenclaw **__**would **__**be too bad, but imagine if they put me in Slytherin."**_

Every Slytherin started to yell, upset about the slight against their house.

"_**That's the House Vol-, I mean, You-Know-Who was in?"**_

"_**Yeah," said Ron. He flopped back into his seat, looking depressed.**_

"_**You know, I think the ends of Scabbers' whiskers are a bit lighter," said Harry, trying to take Ron's mind off Houses. "So what do your oldest brothers do now that they've left, anyway?"**_

_**Harry was wondering what a wizard did once he'd finished school.**_

"_**Charlie's in Romania studying dragons, and Bill's in Africa doing something for Gringotts," said Ron. "Did you hear about Gringotts? It's been all over the **__**Daily Prophet, **__**but I don't suppose you get that with the Muggles — someone tried to rob a high security vault."**_

_**Harry stared.**_

"_**Really? What happened to them?"**_

"_**Nothing, that's why it's such big news. They haven't been caught. My dad says it must've been a powerful Dark wizard to get round Gringotts, but they don't think they took anything, that's what's odd. 'Course, everyone gets scared when something like this happens in case You-Know-Who's behind it."**_

_**Harry turned this news over in his mind. He was starting to get a prickle of fear every time You-Know-Who was mentioned. He supposed this was all part of entering the magical world, but it had been a lot more comfortable saying "Voldemort" without worrying.**_

"_**What's your Quidditch team?" Ron asked.**_

_**]**_

"_**Er — I don't know any," Harry confessed.**_

"_**What!" Ron looked dumbfounded. "Oh, you wait, it's the best **__**game **__**in the world—" And he was off, explaining all about the four balls and the positions of the seven players, describing famous games he'd been to with his brothers and the broomstick he'd like to get if he had the money. He was just taking Harry through the finer points of the game when the compartment door slid open yet again, but it wasn't Neville the toadless boy, or Hermione Granger this time.**_

_**Three boys entered, and Harry recognized the middle one at once: It was the pale boy from Madam Malkin's robe shop. He was looking at Harry with a lot more interest than he'd shown back in Diagon Alley.**_

Draco groaned and Harry placed a kiss on his neck.

"_**Is it true?" he said. "They're saying all down the train that**_

_**Harry Potter's in this compartment. So it's you, is it?"**_

"_**Yes," said Harry. He was looking at the other boys. Both of them were thickset and looked extremely mean. Standing on either side of the pale boy, they looked like bodyguards.**_

"_**Oh, this is Crabbe and this is Goyle," said the pale boy carelessly, noticing where Harry was looking. "And my names Malfoy, Draco Malfoy."**_

_**Ron gave a slight cough, which might have been hiding a snigger.**_

_**Draco Malfoy looked at him.**_

"_**Think my name's funny, do you? No need to ask who you are. My father told me all the Weasleys have red hair, freckles, and more children than they can afford."**_

"I'm so sorry you guys." Draco groaned again.

"It's cool, we aren't Weasleys anymore." Ginny said proudly.

_**He turned back to Harry. "You'll soon find out some wizarding families are much better than others, Potter. You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there."**_

_**He held out his hand to shake Harry's, but Harry didn't take it.**_

"_**I think I can tell who the wrong sorts are for myself, thanks," he said coolly.**_

_**Draco Malfoy didn't go red, but a pink tinge appeared in his pale cheeks.**_

"_**I'd be careful if I were you, Potter," he said slowly. "Unless you're a bit politer you'll go the same way as your parents. They didn't know what was good for them, either. You hang around with riffraff like the Weasleys and that Hagrid, and it'll rub off on you."**_

"Draco!" Narcissa whined.

_**Both Harry and Ron stood up.**_

"_**Say that again," Ron said, his face as red as his hair.**_

"_**Oh, you're going to fight us, are you?" Malfoy sneered.**_

"_**Unless you get out now," said Harry, more bravely than he felt, because Crabbe and Goyle were a lot bigger than him or Ron.**_

"_**But we don't feel like leaving, do we, boys? We've eaten all our food and you still seem to have some."**_

_**Goyle reached toward the Chocolate Frogs next to Ron — Ron leapt forward, but before he'd so much as touched Goyle, Goyle let out a horrible yell.**_

_**Scabbers the rat was hanging off his finger, sharp little teeth sunk deep into Goyle's knuckle — Crabbe and Malfoy backed away as Goyle swung Scabbers round and round, howling, and when Scabbers finally flew off and hit the window, all three of them disappeared at once. Perhaps they thought there were more rats lurking among the sweets, or perhaps they'd heard footsteps, because a second later, Hermione Granger had come in. **_

"_**What **__**has **__**been going on?" she said, looking at the sweets all over the floor and Ron picking up Scabbers by his tail.**_

"_**I think he's been knocked out," Ron said to Harry. He looked closer at Scabbers. "No—I don't believe it—he's gone back to sleep."**_

_**And so he had.**_

"_**You've met Malfoy before?"**_

_**Harry explained about their meeting in Diagon Alley.**_

"_**I've heard of his family," said Ron darkly. "They were some of the first to come back to our side after You-Know-Who disappeared. Said they'd been bewitched. My dad doesn't believe it. He says Malfoy's father didn't need an excuse to go over to the Dark Side." He turned to Hermione. "Can we help you with something?"**_

"Rude much?" Bellatrix snorted.

"_**You'd better hurry up and put your robes on, I've just been up to the front to ask the conductor, and he says we're nearly there. You haven't been fighting, have you? You'll be in trouble before we even get there!"**_

"_**Scabbers has been fighting, not us," said Ron, scowling at her.**_

"_**Would you mind leaving while we change?"**_

"_**All right—I only came in here because people outside are behaving very childishly, racing up and down the corridors," said Hermione in a sniffy voice. "And you've got dirt on your nose, by the way, did you know?"**_

_**Ron glared at her as she left. Harry peered out of the window. It was getting dark. He could see mountains and forests under a deep purple sky. The train did seem to be slowing down.**_

_**He and Ron took off their jackets and pulled on their long black robes. Ron's were a bit short for him; you could see his sneakers underneath them.**_

_**A voice echoed through the train: "We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes' time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately."**_

_**Harry's stomach lurched with nerves and Ron, he saw, looked pale under his freckles. They crammed their pockets with the last of the sweets and joined the crowd thronging the corridor.**_

_**The train slowed right down and finally stopped. People pushed their way toward the door and out on to a tiny, dark platform.**_

_**Harry shivered in the cold night air. Then a lamp came bobbing over the heads of the students, and Harry heard a familiar voice:**_

"_**Firs' years! Firs' years over here! All right there, Harry?"**_

_**Hagrid's big hairy face beamed over the sea of heads.**_

"_**C'mon, follow me—any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now!**_

_**Firs' years follow me!"**_

_**Slipping and stumbling, they followed Hagrid down what seemed to be a steep, narrow path. It was so dark on either side of them that Harry thought there must be thick trees there. Nobody spoke much. Neville, the boy who kept losing his toad, sniffed once or twice.**_

"_**Yeh'll get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," Hagrid called over his shoulder, "jus' round this bend here."**_

_**There was a loud "Oooooh!"**_

_**The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black lake. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.**_

"_**No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore. Harry and Ron were followed into their boat by Neville and Hermione.**_

"_**Everyone in?" shouted Hagrid, who had a boat to himself.**_

"_**Right then—FORWARD!"**_

_**And the fleet of little boats moved off all at once, gliding across the lake, which was as smooth as glass. Everyone was silent, staring up at the great castle overhead. It towered over them as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood.**_

"_**Heads down!" yelled Hagrid as the first boats reached the cliff; they all bent their heads and the little boats carried them through a curtain of ivy that hid a wide opening in the cliff face. They were carried along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking them right underneath the castle, until they reached a kind of underground harbor, where they clambered out onto rocks and pebbles.**_

"_**Oy, you there! Is this your toad?" said Hagrid, who was checking the boats as people climbed out of them.**_

"_**Trevor!" cried Neville blissfully, holding out his hands. Then they clambered up a passageway in the rock after Hagrid's lamp, coming out at last onto smooth, damp grass right in the shadow of the castle.**_

_**They walked up a flight of stone steps and crowded around the huge, oak front door.**_

"_**Everyone here? You there, still got yer toad?"**_

_**Hagrid raised a gigantic fist and knocked three times on the castle door.**_

"That's the end of the chapter. Who wants to read next?" Luna finishes.

"Actually that chapter took longer than thought so why don't we have lunch then pick up again." Severus interjected.

"Sounds great!" Sirius exclaimed. "I'm starved."

Ginny set everyone up in the dining room with the sandwiches they made while Harry, Severus and Tom sat in the library with their own sandwiches.

They all just stared at each other for a couple minutes till Harry sighed.

"Okay so what do you want to know?"


	8. Chapter 8

"If you don't mind Severus I'll start." Tom said and Severus nodded his agreement.

"Okay, my first question is obvious, what side of the war are you on?"

Harry lets out a shaky breath.

"Right to the point, okay, while I think your methods are sometimes harsh and wrong I will not fight alongside Dumbledore so I am on your side. So is everyone else here with me."

"Why do you call yourself Evans? And why did Miss Weasley say they weren't Weasleys anymore?" Severus asked quickly, he had to know.

"Ah well, I was hoping no one heard that. We are all an Evans, we did a sibling adoption. We were gonna use Black because it was a pureblood name Sirius didn't think that was a good idea as there are still Blacks around so we used my mother's name. As for why not Potter, I refuse to go by that arrogant, spoilt, overgrown child of a bully's name. James Potter," He spat the name out like a curse. "Is NOT my father!"

They sat in silence for a moment; Tom and Severus in shock and Harry to calm down.

"How does no one know? Changes like that are usually made immediately known in all records with your name on them." Tom asked intrigued.

"I put a charm over us, we can't tell anyone who means us ill intent or who would tell Dumbledore and Remus put the records under strong notice me not's with help from Madame Bones."

"Amelia?" Severus asked, startled. "She knows Sirius is with you?"

Harry nodded.

"She said she can't do anything about it without real proof but that she knew he was innocent. So she's looking the other way while we gather enough proof."

"Harry I've one more question and then I'll leave you with Severus. Later I would like for you to join me for a talk about your place with the Death Eaters and about Dumbledore. If you are amenable?"

"Of course." Harry said, bowing his head and Tom left.

"Harry? Will you tell me why you hate the Headmaster?" Severus asked quietly.

Harry continued looking at the floor as his eyes began to water. Then looking back at Severus he took a shaky breath.

"He left me with Vernon and Petunia, he paid them to treat me as badly as they could, and he paid them with my own money. He left Sirius in Azkaban even though he knew he was innocent because he knew Sirius would take me away from there. He paid Ron and Hermione and the Weasleys to pretend to care about me, again with my own money. He didn't count on Fred, George and Ginny being more loyal than that. He...He wants to kill Sirius someway so that I'll trust and go to him more."

Harry's voice broke with emotion at the end. Hesitantly Severus sat next to Harry and laid an arm around his shaking shoulders. Harry was shocked for a moment before he laid his head on Severus' shoulder sobbing. Severus rubbed circles between the boy's shoulders.

'The poor boy, he thinks he needs to be strong for everyone, but who's being strong for him?' Severus thought sadly looking down on the sobbing boy. 'I will be.' He decided.

When Harry calmed down Severus stood and pulled a leather bound book from the locked bottom drawer of his desk before sitting next to Harry again.

"I believe I told you I had something that would cheer you up. Here it is." Severus said, handing the book to Harry.

Harry opened the book and gasped. The book was filled with pictures and in most of them was his mother.

Lily and Severus standing in front of an old weeping willow, Lily and Sev on their first trip to Diagon Alley, Standing on the platform in front of the train uniforms on with wide smiles, Lily, Sev, Lucius, Narcissa and Bellatrix all standing on the shore of the Black lake. On and on the pictures went filling every page and for the next hour they forgot about the war as Harry listened to Severus fall into his memories of his mother.

Remus knocked on the door and stepped in.

"Sorry 'Ry but everyone is wondering if we can start again soon. They want to try for five more chapters before dinner since Tom said you two have plans to talk after dinner so there won't be reading."

"Of course, come on in guys."

Everyone rushed back in and took up their previous spots except now Sirius sat with Remus and Severus instead of on the floor.

"Okay who wants to go next?"

"I will." Said Tom and Severus handed him the book.


	9. Chapter 9

_**THE SORTING HAT**_

_**The door swung open at once. A tall, black-haired witch in emerald-green robes stood there. She had a very stern face and Harry's first thought was that this was not someone to cross.**_

Sirius winced. "She's not."

"Then why did you keep doing so?" Remus asked and Sirius just shrugged.

"_**The firs' years, Professor McGonagall," said Hagrid.**_

"_**Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here."**_

_**She pulled the door wide. The entrance hall was so big you could have fit the whole of the Dursleys' house in it. The stone walls were lit with flaming torches like the ones at Gringotts, the ceiling was too high to make out, and a magnificent marble staircase facing them led to the upper floors.**_

_**They followed Professor McGonagall across the flagged stone floor. Harry could hear the drone of hundreds of voices from a doorway to the right—the rest of the school must already be here—but Professor McGonagall showed the first years into a small, empty chamber off the hall. They crowded in, standing rather closer together than they would usually have done, peering about nervously.**_

"_**Welcome to Hogwarts," said Professor McGonagall. "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your Houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your House will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your House, sleep in your House dormitory, and spend free time in your House common room.**_

"_**The four Houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each House has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your House points, while any rule breaking will lose House points. At the end of the year, the House with the most points is awarded the House cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever House becomes yours.**_

"_**The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting."**_

"Same speech she gave when I started." Lucius stated dryly.

_**Her eyes lingered for a moment on Neville's cloak, which was fastened under his left ear, and on Ron's smudged nose. Harry nervously tried to flatten his hair.**_

Everyone just laughed.

"Yea right 'Ry."

You'll never get it to lie flat." George and Remus said.

"_**I shall return when we are ready for you," said Professor McGonagall. "Please wait quietly."**_

_**She left the chamber. Harry swallowed.**_

"_**How exactly do they sort us into Houses?" he asked Ron.**_

"_**Some sort of test, I think. Fred said it hurts a lot, but I think he was joking."**_

_**Harry's heart gave a horrible jolt. A test? In front of the whole school? But he didn't know any magic yet—what on earth would he have to do? He hadn't expected something like this the moment they arrived. He looked around anxiously and saw that everyone else looked terrified, too. No one was talking much except Hermione Granger, who was whispering very fast about all the spells she'd learned and wondering which one she'd need.**_

"God that girl sounds insufferable!" Bellatrix whined.

"She is!" Exclaimed all the teens.

_**Harry tried hard not to listen to her. He'd never been more nervous, never, not even when he'd had to take a school report home to the Dursleys saying that he'd somehow turned his teachers wig blue.**_

Fred and George turned to Harry with excited eyes.

"Harry!" George started.

"Come pranking with us!" Fred finished.

"No!" yelled Remus, Sirius and Severus. The last thing they needed was the twins to get their hands on the son of a Marauder.

They pouted. "Why not?" They whined.

Harry just smirked.

_**He kept his eyes fixed on the door. Any second now, Professor McGonagall would come back and lead him to his doom.**_

~Over reaction much Evans?~ Tom hissed.

~Oh do shut up.~ Harry answered grumpily.

_**Then something happened that made him jump about a foot in the air—several people behind him screamed.**_

"_**What the—?"**_

_**He gasped. So did the people around him. About twenty ghosts had just streamed through the back wall. Pearly-white and slightly transparent, they glided across the room talking to one another and hardly glancing at the first years. They seemed to be arguing. What looked like a fat little monk was saying: "Forgive and forget, I say, we ought to give him a second chance—"**_

"Peeves," Narcissa said. "They're always arguing about Peeves."

"_**My dear Friar, haven't we given Peeves all the chances he deserves? He gives us all a bad name and you know, he's not really even a ghost—I say, what are you all doing here?"**_

_**A ghost wearing a ruff and tights had suddenly noticed the first years.**_

_**Nobody answered.**_

"_**New students!" said the Fat Friar, smiling around at them.**_

"_**About to be Sorted, I suppose?"**_

_**A few people nodded mutely.**_

"_**Hope to see you in Hufflepuff!" said the Friar. "My old House, you know."**_

"_**Move along now," said a sharp voice. "The Sorting Ceremony's about to start."**_

_**Professor McGonagall had returned. One by one, the ghosts floated away through the opposite wall.**_

"_**Now, form a line," Professor McGonagall told the first years, "and follow me."**_

_**Feeling oddly as though his legs had turned to lead, Harry got into line behind a boy with sandy hair,**_

"Seamus Finnigan." Harry said. "I miss him, he was cool."

_**with Ron behind him, and they walked out of the chamber, back across the hall, and through a pair of double doors into the Great Hall.**_

_**Harry had never even imagined such a strange and splendid place. It was lit by thousands and thousands of candles that were floating in midair over four long tables, where the rest of the students were sitting. These tables were laid with glittering golden plates and goblets. At the top of the hall was another long table where the teachers were sitting. Professor McGonagall led the first years up here, so that they came to a halt in a line facing the other students, with the teachers behind them. The hundreds of faces staring at them looked like pale lanterns in the flickering candlelight. Dotted here and there among the students, the ghosts shone misty silver. Mainly to avoid all the staring eyes, Harry looked upward and saw a velvety black ceiling dotted with stars. He heard Hermione whisper, "It's bewitched to look like the sky outside. I read about it in **__**Hogwarts, A History.**__**"**_

_**It was hard to believe there was a ceiling there at all, and that the Great Hall didn't simply open on to the heavens.**_

_**Harry quickly looked down again as Professor McGonagall silently placed a four-legged stool in front of the first years. On top of the stool she put a pointed wizard's hat. This hat was patched and frayed and extremely dirty. Aunt Petunia wouldn't have let it in the house.**_

_**Maybe they had to try and get a rabbit out of it,**_

Everyone looked at him confused.

"Why would you think that?" Bellatrix asked.

"It's a muggle magic trick. It's all illusions though, they cant do real magic." Sirius explained.

_**Harry thought wildly, that seemed the sort of thing — noticing that everyone in the hall was now staring at the hat, he stared at it, too. For a few seconds, there was complete silence. Then the hat twitched. A rip near the brim opened wide like a mouth — and the hat began to sing:**_

"_**Oh, you may not think I'm pretty,**_

_**But don't judge on what you see,**_

_**I'll eat myself if you can find**_

_**A smarter hat than me.**_

_**You can keep your bowlers black,**_

_**Your top hats sleek and tall,**_

_**For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat**_

_**And I can cap them all.**_

_**There's nothing hidden in your head**_

_**The Sorting Hat can't see,**_

_**So try me on and I will tell you**_

_**Where you ought to be.**_

_**You might belong in Gryffindor,**_

_**Where dwell the brave at heart,**_

_**Their daring, nerve, and chivalry**_

_**Set Gryffindors apart;**_

_**You might belong in Hufflepuff,**_

_**Where they are just and loyal,**_

_**Those patient Hufflepuffs are true**_

_**And unafraid of toil;**_

_**Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,**_

_**If you've a ready mind,**_

_**Where those of wit and learning,**_

_**Will always find their kind;**_

_**Or perhaps in Slytherin**_

_**You'll make your real friends,**_

_**Those cunning folk use any means**_

_**To achieve their ends.**_

_**So put me on! Don't be afraid!**_

_**And don't get in a flap**__**!**_

_**You're in safe hands (though I have none)**_

_**For I'm a Thinking Cap**__**!"**_

_**The whole hall burst into applause as the hat finished its song. It bowed to each of the four tables and then became quite still again.**_

"_**So we've just got to try on the hat!" Ron whispered to Harry.**_

"_**I'll kill Fred; he was going on about wrestling a troll."**_

Harry snorted and tried to cover it with a cough. Draco looked at him, worrying over his reaction.

_**Harry smiled weakly. Yes, trying on the hat was a lot better than having to do a spell, but he did wish they could have tried it on without everyone watching. The hat seemed to be asking rather a lot; Harry didn't feel brave or quick-witted or any of it at the moment. If only the hat had mentioned a House for people who felt a bit queasy, that would have been the one for him.**_

"Ha, I think that would be for everyone." Severus remarked and most everyone nodded.

_**Professor McGonagall now stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment.**_

"_**When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted," she said. "Abbott, Hannah!"**_

_**A pink-faced girl with blonde pigtails stumbled out of line, put on the hat, which fell right down over her eyes, and sat down. A moment's pause—**_

"_**HUFFLEPUFF!" shouted the hat.**_

_**The table on the right cheered and clapped as Hannah went to sit down at the Hufflepuff table. Harry saw the ghost of the Fat Friar waving merrily at her.**_

"_**Bones, Susan!"**_

"_**HUFFLEPUFF!" shouted the hat again, and Susan scuttled off to sit next to Hannah.**_

"_**Boot, Terry!"**_

"_**RAVENCLAW!"**_

_**The table second from the left clapped this time; several Ravenclaws stood up to shake hands with Terry as he joined them.**_

"_**Brocklehurst, Mandy" went to Ravenclaw too, but "Brown,**_

_**Lavender" became the first new Gryffindor, and the table on the far left exploded with cheers; Harry could see Ron's twin brothers catcalling.**_

"_**Bulstrode, Millicent" then became a Slytherin. Perhaps it was**_

_**Harry's imagination, after all he'd heard about Slytherin, but he thought they looked like an unpleasant lot.**_

"Hey!" Draco spluttered, indignant. The rest of the Slytherins glared while everyone else laughed.

_**He was starting to feel definitely sick now. He remembered being picked for teams during gym at his old school. He had always**_

_**been last to be chosen, not because he was no good, but because no one wanted Dudley to think they liked him.**_

"_**Finch-Fletchley, Justin!"**_

"Tool." Harry muttered much to Draco's amusement.

"_**HUFFLEPUFF!"**_

_**Sometimes, Harry noticed, the hat shouted out the House at once, but at others it took a little while to decide. "Finnigan, Seamus," the sandy-haired boy next to Harry in the line, sat on the stool for almost a whole minute before the hat declared him a Gryffindor.**_

"_**Granger, Hermione!"**_

_**Hermione almost ran to the stool and jammed the hat eagerly on her head.**_

"_**GRYFFINDOR!" shouted the hat. Ron groaned.**_

_**A horrible thought struck Harry, as horrible thoughts always do when you're very nervous. What if he wasn't chosen at all? What if he just sat there with the hat over his eyes for ages, until Professor McGonagall jerked it off his head and said there had obviously been a mistake and he'd better get back on the train?**_

"Has that ever happened?" Ginny asked.

"No, if you receive a letter you belong at Hogwarts." Severus answered.

_**When Neville Longbottom, the boy who kept losing his toad, was called, he fell over on his way to the stool. The hat took a long time to decide with Neville. When it finally shouted,**_

"_**GRYFFINDOR," Neville ran off still wearing it, and had to jog back amid gales of laughter to give it to "MacDougal, Morag."**_

_**Malfoy swaggered forward when his name was called and got his wish at once: the hat had barely touched his head when it screamed, "SLYTHERIN!"**_

Draco put on his best arrogant, pureblood smirk and Harry pinched him.

_**Malfoy went to join his friends Crabbe and Goyle, looking pleased with himself.**_

_**There weren't many people left now.**_

"_**Moon"..., "Nott"..., "Parkinson"..., then a pair of twin girls, "Patil" and "Patil"..., then "Perks, Sally-Anne"..., and then, at last—**_

"_**Potter, Harry!" **_

_**As Harry stepped forward, whispers suddenly broke out like little hissing fires all over the hall.**_

"_**Potter, **__**did she say?"**_

"_**The **__**Harry Potter?"**_

Harry put his head in his hands and started mumbling to himself while Draco rubbed circles on his back.

_**The last thing Harry saw before the hat dropped over his eyes was the hall full of people craning to get a good look at him. Next second he was looking at the black inside of the hat. He waited.**_

"_**Hmm,"**_

'Oh no,' Harry thought. 'They're going to find out.' Harry eyes got wide as he turned white and Severus was getting concerned.

_**said a small voice in his ear. "Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either. There's talent, oh my goodness, yes—and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that's interesting...So where shall I put you?"**_

"What?!" Several of them whispered and Harry turned red and burrowed into Draco's side.

_**Harry gripped the edges of the stool and thought, **__**Not Slytherin, not Slytherin.**_

"_**Not Slytherin, eh?" said the small voice. "Are you sure? You**_

_**could be great, you know, it's all here in your head, and Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that—no? Well, if you're sure—better be GRYFFINDOR!"**_

The library was completely silent.

"Harry." Sirius called. Harry raised his head.

"We still love you cub." Remus said and Harry saw them all nod. Harry's muscles relaxed and Draco motioned Tom to keep reading.

_**Harry heard the hat shout the last word to the whole hall. He took off the hat and walked shakily toward the Gryffindor table.**_

_**He was so relieved to have been chosen and not put in Slytherin; he hardly noticed that he was getting the loudest cheer yet. Percy the Prefect got up and shook his hand vigorously, while the Weasley twins yelled, "We got Potter! We got Potter!" Harry sat down opposite the ghost in the ruff he'd seen earlier. The ghost patted his arm, giving Harry the sudden, horrible feeling he'd just plunged it into a bucket of ice-cold water.**_

Lucius shivered. "I hate it when they do that." Everyone agreed.

_**He could see the High Table properly now. At the end nearest him sat Hagrid, who caught his eye and gave him the thumbs up.**_

_**Harry grinned back. And there, in the center of the High Table, in a large gold chair, sat Albus Dumbledore. Harry recognized him at once from the card he'd gotten out of the Chocolate Frog on the train. Dumbledore's silver hair was the only thing in the whole hall that shone as brightly as the ghosts. Harry spotted Professor Quirrell, too, the nervous young man from the Leaky Cauldron. He was looking very peculiar in a large purple turban.**_

_**And now there were only four people left to be sorted. "Thomas,**_

_**Dean," a Black boy even taller than Ron, joined Harry at the Gryffindor table. "Turpin, Lisa," became a Ravenclaw and then it was Ron's turn. He was pale green by now. Harry crossed his fingers under the table and a second later the hat had shouted, "GRYFFINDOR!"**_

_**Harry clapped loudly with the rest as Ron collapsed into the chair next to him.**_

"_**Well done, Ron, excellent," said Percy Weasley pompously across Harry as "Zabini, Blaise," was made a Slytherin. Professor McGonagall rolled up her scroll and took the Sorting Hat away.**_

_**Harry looked down at his empty gold plate. He had only just realized how hungry he was. The pumpkin pasties seemed ages ago.**_

_**Albus Dumbledore had gotten to his feet. He was beaming at the students, his arms opened wide, as if nothing could have pleased him more than to see them all there.**_

"_**Welcome!" he said. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!**_

"_**Thank you!"**_

_**He sat back down. Everybody clapped and cheered. Harry didn't know whether to laugh or not.**_

"_**Is he—a bit mad?" he asked Percy uncertainly.**_

"YES!" Several people yelled at book Harry while the real Harry laughed.

"_**Mad?" said Percy airily. "He's a genius! Best wizard in the world! But he is a bit mad, yes. Potatoes, Harry?"**_

_**Harry's mouth fell open. The dishes in front of him were now piled with food. He had never seen so many things he liked to eat on one table: roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, fries, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and, for some strange reason, peppermint humbugs.**_

_**The Dursleys had never exactly starved Harry, but he'd never been allowed to eat as much as he liked. Dudley had always taken anything that Harry really wanted, even if it made him sick. Harry piled his plate with a bit of everything except the peppermints and began to eat. It was all delicious.**_

"_**That does look good," said the ghost in the ruff sadly, watching Harry cut up his steak.**_

"_**Can't you—?"**_

"_**I haven't eaten for nearly five hundred years," said the ghost.**_

"_**I don't need to, of course, but one does miss it. I don't think I've introduced myself? Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington at your service. Resident ghost of Gryffindor Tower."**_

"_**I know who you are!" said Ron suddenly. "My brothers told me about you—you're Nearly Headless Nick!"**_

"_**I would **__**prefer **__**you to call me Sir Nicholas de Mimsy—" the ghost began stiffly, but sandy-haired Seamus Finnigan interrupted.**_

"_**Nearly **__**Headless? How can you be **__**nearly **__**headless?"**_

"He loves when you ask that." Sirius laughed and Remus just grimaced.

_**Sir Nicholas looked extremely miffed, as if their little chat wasn't going at all the way he wanted.**_

"_**Like **__**this,**__**" he said irritably. He seized his left ear and pulled. His whole head swung off his neck and fell onto his shoulder as if it was on a hinge. Someone had obviously tried to behead him, but not done it properly. Looking pleased at the stunned looks on their faces, Nearly Headless Nick flipped his head back onto his neck, coughed, and said, "So—new Gryffindors! I hope you're going to help us win the House Championship this year? Gryffindors have never gone so long without winning. Slytherins have got the cup six years in a row! The Bloody Baron's becoming almost unbearable—he's the Slytherin ghost."**_

_**Harry looked over at the Slytherin table and saw a horrible ghost sitting there, with blank staring eyes, a gaunt face, and robes stained with silver blood. He was right next to Malfoy who, Harry was pleased to see, didn't look too pleased with the seating arrangements.**_

"_**How did he get covered in blood?" asked Seamus with great interest.**_

"_**I've never asked," said Nearly Headless Nick delicately.**_

"Does anyone know?" Ginny asked. Everyone shook their heads.

"Five galleons say Harry finds out." Draco said and everyone put money down and Tom wrote who bet on what side.

_**When everyone had eaten as much as they could, the remains of the food faded from the plates, leaving them sparkling clean as before. A moment later the desserts appeared. Blocks of ice cream in every flavor you could think of, apple pies, treacle tarts, chocolate éclairs and jam doughnuts, trifle, strawberries, Jell-O, rice pudding...**_

_**As Harry helped himself to a treacle tart, the talk turned to their families.**_

"_**I'm half-and-half," said Seamus. "Me dad's a Muggle. Mom didn't tell him she was a witch 'til after they were married. Bit of a nasty shock for him."**_

_**The others laughed.**_

"That's not funny." Severus said seriously as Tom and Harry shook their heads in agreement. "Muggles can react very badly to that."

"_**What about you, Neville?" said Ron.**_

"_**Well, my gran brought me up and she's a witch," said Neville,**_

"_**But the family thought I was all-Muggle for ages. My Great Uncle Algie kept trying to catch me off my guard and force some magic out of me—he pushed me off the end of Blackpool pier once, I nearly drowned—but nothing happened until I was eight. Great**_

_**Uncle Algie came round for dinner, and he was hanging me out of an upstairs window by the ankles when my Great Auntie Enid offered him a meringue and he accidentally let go. But I bounced—all the way down the garden and into the road. They were all really pleased, Gran was crying, she was so happy. And you should have seen their faces when I got in here — they thought I might not be magic enough to come, you see. Great Uncle Algie was so pleased he bought me my toad."**_

"That's absolutely horrid!" Narcissa screeched.

"That poor boy." Bellatrix said sadly while Harry just stared at her.

_**On Harry's other side, Percy Weasley and Hermione were talking about lessons ("I **__**do **__**hope they start right away, there's so much to learn, I'm particularly interested in Transfiguration, you know, turning something into something else, of course, it's supposed to be very**__**difficult—"; "You'll be starting small, just matches into needles and that sort of thing—").**_

_**Harry, who was starting to feel warm and sleepy, looked up at the High Table again. Hagrid was drinking deeply from his goblet. Professor McGonagall was talking to Professor Dumbledore. Professor Quirrell, in his absurd turban, was talking to a teacher with greasy black hair, a hooked nose, and sallow skin.**_

Harry ducked his head when Severus frowned at him as everyone laughed.

_**It happened very suddenly. The hook-nosed teacher looked past**_

_**Quirrell's turban straight into Harry's eyes—and a sharp, hot pain shot across the scar on Harry's forehead.**_

"Wait, what?" Severus asked, startled.

Sirius jumped to his feet, ignoring Remus' warning, and got in Severus' face.

"What the hell did you do to my godson Snivellus!"

Severus' face turned stony as the room became silent. Harry stood and faced Sirius' back, magic crackling at his fingertips.

"Sirius!" Harry shouted and he turned around gulping. "Not only have you disobeyed a direct order from me you disregarded common courtesy. It is his home we are being allowed sanctuary in, or have you forgotten." Harry raised an eyebrow in a near perfect imitation of Severus, shocking the Slytherins.

"I am disappointed in you; I thought you could act like an adult during these readings. Clearly I was wrong. Housekeeping duties, four weeks, the two left till school starts and the first two of holiday, no magic. Feel lucky that is all you are getting. Now. Sit. Down!"

The room fell silent again as Harry stepped out to control his magic and temper with Draco following. When they came back Harry was calm again and Draco looked thoroughly snogged.

"_**Ouch!" Harry clapped a hand to his head.**_

"_**What is it?" asked Percy.**_

"_**N-nothing."**_

_**The pain had gone as quickly as it had come. Harder to shake off was the feeling Harry had gotten from the teachers look—a feeling that he didn't like Harry at all.**_

Harry and Draco snorted, remembering their first potions class.

"_**Who's that teacher talking to Professor Quirrell?" he asked**_

_**Percy. **_

"_**Oh, you know Quirrell already, do you? No wonder he's looking so nervous, that's Professor Snape. He teaches Potions, but he doesn't want to—everyone knows he's after Quirrell's job. Knows an awful lot about the Dark Arts, Snape."**_

_**Harry watched Snape for a while, but Snape didn't look at him again.**_

_**At last, the desserts too disappeared, and Professor Dumbledore got to his feet again. The hall fell silent.**_

"_**Ahem—just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered.**_

_**I have a few start-of-term notices to give you. **_

"_**First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well."**_

_**Dumbledore's twinkling eyes flashed in the direction of the Weasley twins.**_

"_**I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors.**_

"_**Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term.**_

_**Anyone interested in playing for their House teams should contact Madam Hooch.**_

"_**And finally, I must tell you that this year; the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death."**_

_**Harry laughed, but he was one of the few who did.**_

"_**He's not serious?" he muttered to Percy.**_

"_**Must be," said Percy, frowning at Dumbledore. "It's odd, because he usually gives us a reason why we're not allowed to go somewhere—the forest's full of dangerous beasts, everyone knows that. I do think he might have told us prefects, at least."**_

"_**And now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!" cried Dumbledore. Harry noticed that the other teachers' smiles had become rather fixed.**_

_**Dumbledore gave his wand a little flick, as if he was trying to get a fly off the end, and a long golden ribbon flew out of it, which rose high above the tables and twisted itself, snakelike, into words.**_

"_**Everyone pick their favorite tune," said Dumbledore, "and off we go!" **_

_**And the school bellowed:**_

"_**Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,**_

_**Teach us something please,**_

_**Whether we be old and bald**_

_**Or young with scabby knees,**_

_**Our heads could do with filling**_

_**With some interesting stuff,**_

_**For now they're bare and full of air,**_

_**Dead flies and bits of fluff,**_

_**So teach us things worth knowing,**_

_**Bring back what we've forgot,**_

_**Just do your best, we'll do the rest,**_

_**And learn until our brains all rot.**__**"**_

_**Everybody finished the song at different times. At last, only the Weasley twins were left singing along to a very slow funeral march. Dumbledore conducted their last few lines with his wand and when they had finished, he was one of those who clapped loudest.**_

"_**Ah, music," he said, wiping his eyes. "A magic beyond all we do here!**_

"It really is." Harry said dreamily then sobered up. "But the school song is awful."

_**And now, bedtime. Off you trot!"**_

_**The Gryffindor first years followed Percy through the chattering crowds, out of the Great Hall, and up the marble staircase. Harry's legs were like lead again, but only because he was so tired and full of food. He was too sleepy even to be surprised that the people in the portraits along the corridors whispered and pointed as they passed, or that twice Percy led them through doorways hidden behind sliding panels and hanging tapestries. They climbed more staircases, yawning and dragging their feet, and Harry was just wondering how much farther they had to go when they came to a sudden halt.**_

_**A bundle of walking sticks was floating in midair ahead of them, and as Percy took a step toward them they started throwing themselves at him.**_

"_**Peeves," Percy whispered to the first years. "A poltergeist." He raised his voice, "Peeves—show yourself."**_

_**A loud, rude sound, like the air being let out of a balloon, answered.**_

"_**Do you want me to go to the Bloody Baron?"**_

_**There was a pop, and a little man with wicked, dark eyes and a wide mouth appeared, floating cross-legged in the air, clutching the walking sticks.**_

"_**Oooooooh!" he said, with an evil cackle. "Ickle Firsties! What fun!"**_

_**He swooped suddenly at them. They all ducked.**_

"_**Go away, Peeves, or the Baron'll hear about this, I mean it!" barked Percy.**_

_**Peeves stuck out his tongue and vanished, dropping the walking sticks on Neville's head. They heard him zooming away, rattling coats of armor as he passed.**_

"_**You want to watch out for Peeves," said Percy, as they set off again. "The Bloody Baron's the only one who can control him, he won't even listen to us prefects. Here we are."**_

_**At the very end of the corridor hung a portrait of a very fat woman in a pink silk dress.**_

"_**Password?" she said.**_

"_**Caput Draconis," said Percy, and the portrait swung forward to reveal a round hole in the wall. They all scrambled through it—Neville needed a leg up—and found themselves in the Gryffindor common room, a cozy, round room full of squashy armchairs.**_

_**Percy directed the girls through one door to their dormitory and the boys through another. At the top of a spiral staircase—they were obviously in one of the towers—they found their beds at last: five four-posters hung with deep red, velvet curtains. Their trunks had already been brought up. Too tired to talk much, they pulled on their pajamas and fell into bed.**_

"_**Great food, isn't it?" Ron muttered to Harry through the hangings. "Get **__**off, **__**Scabbers! He's chewing my sheets."**_

More growling at the mention of the rat and Tom made up his mind.

_**Harry was going to ask Ron if he'd had any of the treacle tart, but he fell asleep almost at once.**_

_**Perhaps Harry had eaten a bit too much, because he had a very strange dream. He was wearing Professor Quirrell's turban, which kept talking to him, telling him he must transfer to Slytherin at once, because it was his destiny. Harry told the turban he didn't want to be in Slytherin; it got heavier and heavier; he tried to pull it off but it tightened painfully—and there was Malfoy, laughing at him as he struggled with it—then Malfoy turned into the hook-nosed teacher, Snape, whose laugh became high and cold — there was a burst of green light and Harry woke, sweating and shaking.**_

"You have the oddest dreams Harry." Luna said and Harry couldn't argue.

_**He rolled over and fell asleep again, and when he woke next day, he didn't remember the dream at all. **_

"That's it. Who's next?" Tom asked holding the book out.

Catching a glimpse of the title Draco said "How 'bout Uncle Sev?" Severus took the book, read the title and sighed.


	10. Chapter 10

_**THE POTIONS MASTER**_

"_**There, look."**_

"_**Where?"**_

"_**Next to the tall kid with the red hair."**_

"_**Wearing the glasses?"**_

"_**Did you see his face?"**_

"_**Did you see his scar?"**_

"Oh for the love of Merlin leave the poor boy alone." Bella threw her hands up in exasperation.

_**Whispers followed Harry from the moment he left his dormitory the next day. People lining up outside classrooms stood on tiptoe to get a look at him, or doubled back to pass him in the corridors again, staring. Harry wished they wouldn't, because he was trying to concentrate on finding his way to classes.**_

_**There were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts: **_

Tom looked at Harry incredulously.

"You actually read Hogwarts, A History?"

Harry turned red but answered back, "how would you know where I learned that if you hadn't read it?" Tom blushed and motioned Severus to keep reading.

_**wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that led somewhere different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway up that you had to remember to jump. Then there were doors that wouldn't open unless you asked politely, or tickled them in exactly the right place, and doors that weren't really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending.**_

"I hate those." Draco grumbled. Remus and Ginny nodded their agreement.

_**It was also very hard to remember where anything was, because it all seemed to move around a lot. The people in the portraits kept going to visit each other, and Harry was sure the coats of armor could walk.**_

"They can." Severus said smugly.

_**The ghosts didn't help, either. It was always a nasty shock when one of them glided suddenly through a door you were trying to open. Nearly Headless Nick was always happy to point new**_

_**Gryffindors in the right direction, but Peeves the Poltergeist was worth two locked doors and a trick staircase if you met him when you were late for class. He would drop wastepaper baskets on your head, pull rugs from under your feet, pelt you with bits of chalk, or sneak up behind you, invisible, grab your nose, and screech, "GOT YOUR CONK!"**_

Sirius burst out laughing and everyone stared at him. Remus sighed.

"Sirius and James taught him that."

"Of course." Severus mumbled to himself.

_**Even worse than Peeves, if that was possible, was the caretaker,**_

_**Argus Filch. Harry and Ron managed to get on the wrong side of him on their very first morning. Filch found them trying to force their way through a door that unluckily turned out to be the entrance to the out-of-bounds corridor on the third floor. He wouldn't believe they were lost, was sure they were trying to break into it on purpose, and was threatening to lock them in the dungeons when they were rescued by Professor Quirrell, who was passing.**_

_**Filch owned a cat called Mrs. Norris, a scrawny, dust-colored creature with bulging, lamplike eyes just like Filch's. She patrolled the corridors alone. Break a rule in front of her, put just one toe out of line, and she'd whisk off for Filch, who'd appear, wheezing, two seconds later. Filch knew the secret passageways of the school better than anyone (except perhaps the Weasley twins) and could pop up as suddenly as any of the ghosts. The students all hated him, and it was the dearest ambition of many to give Mrs. Norris a good kick.**_

Sirius, Tom, Fred and George all screamed "Done it!"

_**And then, once you had managed to find them, there were the classes themselves. There was a lot more to magic, as Harry quickly found out, than waving your wand and saying a few funny words.**_

_**They had to study the night skies through their telescopes every**_

_**Wednesday at midnight and learn the names of different stars and the movements of the planets. Three times a week they went out to the greenhouses behind the castle to study Herbology, with a dumpy little witch called Professor Sprout, where they learned how to take care of all the strange plants and fungi, and found out what they were used for.**_

_**Easily the most boring class was History of Magic, which was the only one taught by a ghost. Professor Binns had been very old indeed when he had fallen asleep in front of the staff room fire and got up next morning to teach, leaving his body behind him. Binns droned on and on while they scribbled down names and dates, and got Emeric the Evil and Uric the Oddball mixed up.**_

_**Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, was a tiny little wizard who had to stand on a pile of books to see over his desk. At the start of their first class he took the roll call, and when he reached Harry's name he gave an excited squeak and toppled out of sight.**_

_**Professor McGonagall was again different. Harry had been quite right to think she wasn't a teacher to cross. Strict and clever, she gave them a talking-to the moment they sat down in her first class. **_

"_**Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts," she said. "Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned."**_

_**Then she changed her desk into a pig and back again. They were all very impressed and couldn't wait to get started, but soon realized they weren't going to be changing the furniture into animals for a long time. After taking a lot of complicated notes, they were each given a match and started trying to turn it into a needle. By the end of the lesson, only Hermione Granger had made any difference to her match;**_

"Show off." Draco muttered at the same time Harry muttered "Know it all."

_**Professor McGonagall showed the class how it had gone all silver and pointy and gave Hermione a rare smile.**_

_**The class everyone had really been looking forward to was Defense Against the Dark Arts, but Quirrell's lessons turned out to be a bit of a joke. His classroom smelled strongly of garlic, which everyone said was to ward off a vampire he'd met in Romania and was afraid would be coming back to get him one of these days. His turban, he told them, had been given to him by an African prince as a thank-you for getting rid of a troublesome zombie, but they weren't sure they believed this story. For one thing, when Seamus Finnigan asked eagerly to hear how Quirrell had fought off the zombie, Quirrell went pink and started talking about the weather; for another, they had noticed that a funny smell hung around the turban, and the Weasley twins insisted that it was stuffed full of garlic as well, so that Quirrell was protected wherever he went.**_

_**Harry was very relieved to find out that he wasn't miles behind everyone else. Lots of people had come from Muggle families and, like him, hadn't had any idea that they were witches and wizards. There was so much to learn that even people like Ron didn't have much of a head start.**_

_**Friday was an important day for Harry and Ron. They finally managed to find their way down to the Great Hall for breakfast without getting lost once.**_

"_**What have we got today?" Harry asked Ron as he poured sugar on his porridge.**_

"_**Double Potions with the Slytherins," said Ron. "Snape's Head of Slytherin House. They say he always favors them—we'll be able to see if it's true."**_

"True." Harry coughed. Draco giggled as Severus mock glared.

"_**Wish McGonagall favored us," said Harry. Professor McGonagall was head of Gryffindor House, but it hadn't stopped her from giving them a huge pile of homework the day before.**_

_**Just then, the mail arrived. Harry had gotten used to this by**_

_**now, but it had given him a bit of a shock on the first morning, when about a hundred owls had suddenly streamed into the Great Hall during breakfast, circling the tables until they saw their owners, and dropping letters and packages onto their laps.**_

_**Hedwig hadn't brought Harry anything so far. She sometimes flew in to nibble his ear and have a bit of toast before going off to sleep in the owlery with the other school owls. This morning, however, she fluttered down between the marmalade and the sugar bowl and dropped a note onto Harry's plate. Harry tore it open at once. It said, in a very untidy scrawl:**_

_**Dear Harry,**_

_**I know you get Friday afternoons off so would you like to come and have a cup of tea with me around three? I want to hear all about your first week. Send us an answer back with Hedwig.**_

_**Hagrid**_

_**Harry borrowed Ron's quill, scribbled **__**Yes, please, see you later **__**on the back of the note, and sent Hedwig off again.**_

"Where did those manners go?" George joked.

"Shut up." Harry mumbled.

_**It was lucky that Harry had tea with Hagrid to look forward to, because the Potions lesson turned out to be the worst thing that had happened to him so far.**_

Almost everyone turned to glare at Severus, who ducked his head blushing.

_**At the start-of-term banquet, Harry had gotten the idea that**_

_**Professor Snape disliked him. By the end of the first Potions lesson, he knew he'd been wrong. Snape didn't dislike Harry—he **__**hated **__**him.**_

"I don't hate you Harry." Severus whispered.

"I know Sev. Don't worry about it." Severus looked thrown by the nickname but just shrugged it off.

_**Potions lessons took place down in one of the dungeons. It was colder here than up in the main castle, and would have been quite creepy enough without the pickled animals floating in glass jars all around the walls.**_

_**Snape, like Flitwick, started the class by taking the roll call, and like Flitwick, he paused at Harry's name.**_

"_**Ah, **__**yes,**__**" he said softly, "Harry Potter. Our new—**__**celebrity.**__**"**_

"Severus!" Bellatrix shrieked.

_**Draco Malfoy and his friends Crabbe and Goyle sniggered behind their hands. Snape finished calling the names and looked up at the class. His eyes were black like Hagrid's, but they had none of Hagrid's warmth. They were cold and empty and made you think of dark tunnels.**_

Suddenly the twins were in front of him trying to look into his eyes.

"They really do!"

"_**You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion making," he began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word—like Professor McGonagall, Snape had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses...I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death—if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."**_

"You don't call a classroom of first years dunderheads! What were you thinking Severus?!" Narcissa sounded scandalized.

_**More silence followed this little speech. Harry and Ron exchanged looks with raised eyebrows. Hermione Granger was on the edge of her seat and looked desperate to start proving that she wasn't a dunderhead.**_

"_**Potter!" said Snape suddenly. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"**_

Lucius looked at his friend and raised an eyebrow. "That's not a first year question."

Severus looked ashamed. "I know."

_**Powdered root of what to an infusion of what**__**? Harry glanced at**_

_**Ron, who looked as stumped as he was; Hermione's hand had shot into the air.**_

"_**I don't know, sir," said Harry.**_

_**Snape's lips curled into a sneer.**_

"_**Tut, tut—fame clearly isn't everything."**_

_**He ignored Hermione's hand.**_

"_**Let's try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"**_

"Third year." Tom stated, glaring at Severus as he turned redder.

_**Hermione stretched her hand as high into the air as it would go without her leaving her seat, but Harry didn't have the faintest idea what a bezoar was. He tried not to look at Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle, who were shaking with laughter.**_

"_**I don't know, sir."**_

"_**Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Potter?"**_

"It might interest you to know I was most excited about potions before your class." Harry said and Severus just hung his head.

_**Harry forced himself to keep looking straight into those cold eyes. He **__**had **__**looked through his books at the Dursleys', but did**_

_**Snape expect him to remember everything in **__**One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi**__**?**_

_**Snape was still ignoring Hermione's quivering hand.**_

"_**What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"**_

"Also third year." Remus growled.

"Guys leave him alone." Harry said.

_**At this, Hermione stood up, her hand stretching toward the dungeon ceiling.**_

"_**I don't know," said Harry quietly. "I think Hermione does, though, why don't you try her?"**_

"Oh Merlin Harry! How did you live past your first class?" Ginny laughed.

_**A few people laughed; Harry caught Seamus's eye, and Seamus winked. Snape, however, was not pleased.**_

"_**Sit down," he snapped at Hermione. "For your information,**_

_**Potter, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite. Well? Why aren't you all copying that down?"**_

"Didn't tell them to." Sirius mumbled and Harry raised an eyebrow at him.

_**There was a sudden rummaging for quills and parchment. Over the noise, Snape said, "And a point will be taken from Gryffindor House for your cheek, Potter."**_

_**Things didn't improve for the Gryffindors as the Potions lesson continued. Snape put them all into pairs and set them to mixing up a simple potion to cure boils. He swept around in his long black cloak, watching them weigh dried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticizing almost everyone except Malfoy, whom he seemed to like.**_

"Don't favor him!" Narcissa cried.

_**He was just telling everyone to look at the perfect way Malfoy had stewed his horned slugs when clouds of acid green smoke and a loud hissing filled the dungeon. Neville had somehow managed to melt Seamus's cauldron into a twisted blob, and their potion was seeping across the stone floor, burning holes in people's shoes. Within seconds, the whole class was standing on their stools while Neville, who had been drenched in the potion when the cauldron collapsed, moaned in pain as angry red boils sprang up all over his arms and legs.**_

"_**Idiot boy!" **_

"For Merlin's sake Severus, Why are you a teacher?!" Lucius exclaimed.

_**snarled Snape, clearing the spilled potion away with one wave of his wand. "I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?"**_

_**Neville whimpered as boils started to pop up all over his nose.**_

"_**Take him up to the hospital wing," Snape spat at Seamus. Then he rounded on Harry and Ron, who had been working next to Neville.**_

"_**You—Potter—why didn't you tell him not to add the quills?**_

_**Thought he'd make you look good if he got it wrong, did you?**_

_**That's another point you've lost for Gryffindor."**_

"I'm so sorry." Severus said miserably.

"It's okay, really." Harry replied.

_**This was so unfair that Harry opened his mouth to argue, but**_

_**Ron kicked him behind their cauldron.**_

"_**Don't push it," he muttered, "I've heard Snape can turn very nasty."**_

_**As they climbed the steps out of the dungeon an hour later,**_

_**Harry's mind was racing and his spirits were low. He'd lost two points for Gryffindor in his very first week—**__**why **__**did Snape hate him so much? **_

"Don't, I know now it was James." Harry cut Severus off when he opened his mouth.

"_**Cheer up," said Ron, "Snape's always taking points off Fred and**_

_**George. Can I come and meet Hagrid with you?"**_

_**At five to three they left the castle and made their way across the grounds. Hagrid lived in a small wooden house on the edge of the forbidden forest. A crossbow and a pair of galoshes were outside the front door.**_

_**When Harry knocked they heard a frantic scrabbling from inside and several booming barks. Then Hagrid's voice rang out, saying,**_

"_**Back**__**, Fang—**__**back.**__**"**_

"Fang?" Tom asked.

"Yea but he's harmless. It's the ones with cute names you gotta watch out for."

_**Hagrid's big, hairy face appeared in the crack as he pulled the door open.**_

"_**Hang on," he said. "**__**Back, **__**Fang."**_

_**He let them in, struggling to keep a hold on the collar of an enormous black boarhound.**_

_**There was only one room inside. Hams and pheasants were hanging from the ceiling, a copper kettle was boiling on the open fire, and in the corner stood a massive bed with a patchwork quilt over it.**_

"_**Make yerselves at home," said Hagrid, letting go of Fang, who bounded straight at Ron and started licking his ears. Like Hagrid, Fang was clearly not as fierce as he looked.**_

"_**This is Ron," Harry told Hagrid, who was pouring boiling water into a large teapot and putting rock cakes onto a plate.**_

"_**Another Weasley, eh?" said Hagrid, glancing at Ron's freckles.**_

"_**I spent half me life chasin' yer twin brothers away from the forest."**_

"And the other half chasing us!" Sirius said proudly, puffing out his chest. Everyone rolled their eyes.

_**The rock cakes were shapeless lumps with raisins that almost broke their teeth, but Harry and Ron pretended to be enjoying them as they told Hagrid all about their first lessons. Fang rested his head on Harry's knee and drooled all over his robes.**_

_**Harry and Ron were delighted to hear Hagrid call Filch "that old**_

_**git''**_

"_**An' as fer that cat, Mrs. Norris, I'd like ter introduce her to Fang sometime. D'yeh know, every time I go up ter the school, she follows me everywhere? Can't get rid of her—Filch puts her up to it."**_

_**Harry told Hagrid about Snape's lesson. Hagrid, like Ron, told**_

_**Harry not to worry about it, that Snape liked hardly any of the students.**_

"_**But he seemed to really **__**hate **__**me."**_

"_**Rubbish!" said Hagrid. "Why should he?"**_

_**Yet Harry couldn't help thinking that Hagrid didn't quite meet his eyes when he said that.**_

"_**How's yer brother Charlie?" Hagrid asked Ron. "I liked him a lot—great with animals."**_

_**Harry wondered if Hagrid had changed the subject on purpose.**_

_**While Ron told Hagrid all about Charlie's work with dragons,**_

_**Harry picked up a piece of paper that was lying on the table under the tea cozy. It was a cutting from the **__**Daily Prophet**__**:**_

_**GRINGOTTS BREAK-IN LATEST**_

_**Investigations continue into the break-in at Gringotts on 31 July, widely believed to be the work of Dark wizards or witches unknown. Gringotts goblins today insisted that nothing had been taken. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied the same day. "But we're not telling you what was in there, so keep your noses out if you know what's good for you," said a Gringotts spokes-goblin this afternoon.**_

_**Harry remembered Ron telling him on the train that someone had tried to rob Gringotts, but Ron hadn't mentioned the date.**_

"_**Hagrid!" said Harry, "that Gringotts break-in happened on my birthday! It might've been happening while we were there!"**_

_**There was no doubt about it, Hagrid definitely didn't meet**_

_**Harry's eyes this time. He grunted and offered him another rock cake. Harry read the story again. **__**The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied earlier that same day. **__**Hagrid had emptied vault seven hundred and thirteen, if you could call it emptying, taking out that grubby little package. Had that been what the thieves were looking for?**_

"Far too attentive and curious for your own good." Severus smirked.

_**As Harry and Ron walked back to the castle for dinner, their pockets weighed down with rock cakes they'd been too polite to refuse, Harry thought that none of the lessons he'd had so far had given him as much to think about as tea with Hagrid. Had Hagrid collected that package just in time? Where was it now? And did Hagrid know something about Snape that he didn't want to tell Harry?**_

"That was all it took?" Tom asked.

"To start yea." Harry giggled.

"I'll read next if no one else wants to." Lucius said eagerly.


	11. PLEASE READ

PLEASE READ! POSTING THIS TO ALL MY STORIES!

First I want to thank all of my readers for their continued support of my stories. I know a lot of authors on this site thank their readers at the beginning or ends of their chapters and I haven't done that. I try to personally respond with my reviewers and some even come up with great ideas or questions.

Second and the reason for this note is I want to send a seriously special shout out to two of my readers. These two readers are the only readers I have ongoing contact with. They always email or review after new chapters and ask great questions or make suggestions that make help me write these stories.

The first is for a reader of TRL. The questions and suggestions they've made have really helped me continue to write my story. So here is my shout out to Tenshi Yami-Angel of Darkness. Thank you so much and I hope you continue to send me your opinions.

The second is to my most energetic reader. I always look forward to reading their reviews especially the last one they left me on Dance parties. They were so enthusiastic about my stories they asked me if they could read my crazy oneshots written while I was on medication and I couldn't tell them no. So this is my shout out to dracoginnyscorpiuswood, I hope you continue to enjoy my stories and show your enthusiasm.

And thank you to all my readers and reviews. I appreciate your continued support.


	12. Chapter 11

_**THE MIDNIGHT DUEL**_

_**Harry had never believed he would meet a boy he hated more than Dudley, but that was before he met Draco Malfoy.**_

"Oh thanks a lot Harry." Draco whined playfully. Harry knocked him with his shoulders.

"Shut up you prat." Draco pouted and Harry laughed.

_**Still, first-year Gryffindors only had Potions with the Slytherins, so they didn't have to put up with Malfoy much. Or at least, they didn't until they spotted a notice pinned up in the Gryffindor common room that made them all groan. Flying lessons would be starting on Thursday—and Gryffindor and Slytherin would be learning together.**_

"_**Typical," said Harry darkly. "Just what I always wanted. To make a fool of myself on a broomstick in front of Malfoy."**_

Fred, George, Severus and Draco all snorted.

"You most certainly did not." Severus remarked. Harry smirked smugly while everyone else looked confused.

_**He had been looking forward to learning to fly more than anything else.**_

"_**You don't know that you'll make a fool of yourself," said Ron reasonably. "Anyway, I know Malfoy's always going on about how good he is at Quidditch, but I bet that's all talk."**_

"It was not!" Draco yelled.

"It's okay Dray, I know you're a wonderful seeker."

_**Malfoy certainly did talk about flying a lot. He complained loudly about first years never getting on the House Quidditch teams**_

Harry, George, Fred and Draco laughed then tried to cover it up with a cough when they saw everyone's questioning looks.

_**and told long, boastful stories that always seemed to end with him narrowly escaping Muggles in helicopters. He wasn't the only one, though: the way Seamus Finnigan told it, he'd spent most of his childhood zooming around the countryside on his broomstick. Even Ron would tell anyone who'd listen about the time he'd almost hit a hang glider on Charlie's old broom. Everyone from wizarding families talked about Quidditch constantly. Ron had already had a big argument with Dean Thomas, who shared their dormitory, about soccer. Ron couldn't see what was exciting about a game with only one ball where no one was allowed to fly. Harry had caught Ron prodding Dean's poster of West Ham soccer team, trying to make the players move.**_

_**Neville had never been on a broomstick in his life, because his grandmother had never let him near one. Privately, Harry felt she'd had good reason, because Neville managed to have an extraordinary number of accidents even with both feet on the ground.**_

"Oh Neville." Ginny said shaking her head.

_**Hermione Granger was almost as nervous about flying as Neville was. This was something you couldn't learn by heart out of a book—not that she hadn't tried. At breakfast on Thursday she bored them all stupid with flying tips she'd gotten out of a library book called **__**Quidditch Through the Ages. **__**Neville was hanging on to her every word, desperate for anything that might help him hang on to his broomstick later, but everybody else was very pleased when Hermione's lecture was interrupted by the arrival of the mail.**_

_**Harry hadn't had a single letter since Hagrid's note, something that Malfoy had been quick to notice, of course. Malfoy's eagle owl was always bringing him packages of sweets from home, which he opened gloatingly at the Slytherin table.**_

_**A barn owl brought Neville a small package from his grandmother.**_

_**He opened it excitedly and showed them a glass ball the size of a large marble, which seemed to be full of white smoke.**_

"_**It's a Remembrall!" he explained. "Gran knows I forget things—this tells you if there's something you've forgotten to do. Look, you hold it tight like this and if it turns red—oh..." His face fell, because the Remembrall had suddenly glowed scarlet, "...you've forgotten something..."**_

"He was always forgetting the common room passwords." Ginny suggested and Harry nodded his agreement.

_**Neville was trying to remember what he'd forgotten when Draco**_

_**Malfoy, who was passing the Gryffindor table, snatched the Remembrall out of his hand.**_

"Draco! We taught you better than that!" Narcissa yelled and Draco turned red.

_**Harry and Ron jumped to their feet. They were half hoping for a reason to fight Malfoy, but Professor McGonagall, who could spot trouble quicker than any teacher in the school, was there in a flash.**_

"_**What's going on?"**_

"_**Malfoy's got my Remembrall, Professor."**_

_**Scowling, Malfoy quickly dropped the Remembrall back on the table.**_

"_**Just looking," he said, and he sloped away with Crabbe and Goyle behind him.**_

_**At three-thirty that afternoon, Harry, Ron, and the other Gryffindors hurried down the front steps onto the grounds for their first flying lesson. It was a clear, breezy day, and the grass rippled under their feet as they marched down the sloping lawns toward a smooth, flat lawn on the opposite side of the grounds to the forbidden forest, whose trees were swaying darkly in the distance.**_

_**The Slytherins were already there, and so were twenty broomsticks lying in neat lines on the ground. Harry had heard Fred and George Weasley complain about the school brooms, saying that some of them started to vibrate if you flew too high, or always flew slightly to the left.**_

"That's not safe." Lucius said concerned.

"Lucius arrange to have new brooms donated from the Slytherin vaults.

_**Their teacher, Madam Hooch, arrived. She had short, gray hair, and yellow eyes like a hawk.**_

"_**Well, what are you all waiting for?" she barked. "Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up."**_

_**Harry glanced down at his broom. It was old and some of the twigs stuck out at odd angles.**_

"_**Stick out your right hand over your broom," called Madam**_

_**Hooch at the front, "and say 'Up!' "**_

"_**UP!" everyone shouted.**_

_**Harry's broom jumped into his hand at once, but it was one of the few that did. Hermione Granger's had simply rolled over on the ground, and Neville's hadn't moved at all. Perhaps brooms, like horses, could tell when you were afraid, thought Harry; there was a quaver in Neville's voice that said only too clearly that he wanted to keep his feet on the ground.**_

"That's a very interesting theory." Severus said thoughtfully.

_**Madam Hooch then showed them how to mount their brooms without sliding off the end, and walked up and down the rows correcting their grips. Harry and Ron were delighted when she told Malfoy he'd been doing it wrong for years.**_

"_**Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard," said Madam Hooch. "Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle—three—two—"**_

_**But Neville, nervous and jumpy and frightened of being left on the ground, pushed off hard before the whistle had touched Madam Hooch's lips.**_

"Oh that poor boy, everything seems to happen to him." Bellatrix said shaking her head.

"_**Come back, boy!" she shouted, but Neville was rising straight up like a cork shot out of a bottle—twelve feet—twenty feet.**_

_**Harry saw his scared white face look down at the ground falling away, saw him gasp, slip sideways off the broom and—**_

_**WHAM—a thud and a nasty crack and Neville lay face down on the grass in a heap.**_

Bellatrix winced. "Bellatrix, may I speak with you later?" Harry asked abruptly.

"Of course Dear." She smiled at him.

_**His broomstick was still rising higher and higher, and started to drift lazily toward the forbidden forest and out of sight.**_

_**Madam Hooch was bending over Neville, her face as white as his.**_

"_**Broken wrist," Harry heard her mutter. "Come on, boy—it's all right, up you get."**_

_**She turned to the rest of the class.**_

"_**None of you is to move while I take this boy to the hospital wing! You leave those brooms where they are or you'll be out of**_

_**Hogwarts before you can say 'Quidditch.' Come on, dear."**_

"Yea right." Draco whispered and Harry snickered.

_**Neville, his face tear-streaked, clutching his wrist, hobbled off with Madam Hooch, who had her arm around him.**_

_**No sooner were they out of earshot than Malfoy burst into laughter.**_

Narcissa glared at Draco who just dropped his head in his hands.

"_**Did you see his face, the great lump?"**_

_**The other Slytherins joined in.**_

"_**Shut up, Malfoy," snapped Parvati Patil.**_

"_**Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom?" said Pansy Parkinson, a hard-faced Slytherin girl. "Never thought **__**you'd **__**like fat little crybabies, Parvati."**_

"_**Look!" said Malfoy, darting forward and snatching something out of the grass. "It's that stupid thing Longbottom's gran sent him."**_

_**The Remembrall glittered in the sun as he held it up.**_

"_**Give that here, Malfoy," said Harry quietly. Everyone stopped talking to watch.**_

"Of course." Severus muttered and Harry just smirked and shrugged his shoulders to say 'What can you do.'

_**Malfoy smiled nastily.**_

"_**I think I'll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find—how about—up a tree?"**_

"_**Give it **__**here**__**!" Harry yelled, but Malfoy had leapt onto his broomstick and taken off. He hadn't been lying, he **__**could **__**fly well. Hovering level with the topmost branches of an oak he called, "Come and get it, Potter!"**_

_**Harry grabbed his broom.**_

"_**No**__**!" shouted Hermione Granger. "Madam Hooch told us not to move—you'll get us all into trouble."**_

_**Harry ignored her. Blood was pounding in his ears. He mounted the broom and kicked hard against the ground and up, up he**_

_**soared; air rushed through his hair, and his robes whipped out behind him—and in a rush of fierce joy he realized he'd found something he could do without being taught—this was easy, this was **__**wonderful. **__**He pulled his broomstick up a little to take it even higher and heard screams and gasps of girls back on the ground and an admiring whoop from Ron.**_

_**He turned his broomstick sharply to face Malfoy in midair. Malfoy looked stunned. **_

"_**Give it here," Harry called, "or I'll knock you off that broom!"**_

"_**Oh, yeah?" said Malfoy, trying to sneer, but looking worried.**_

_**Harry knew, somehow, what to do. He leaned forward and grasped the broom tightly in both hands, and it shot toward Malfoy like a javelin. Malfoy only just got out of the way in time; Harry made a sharp about-face and held the broom steady. A few people below were clapping.**_

"_**No Crabbe and Goyle up here to save your neck, Malfoy,"**_

_**Harry called.**_

_**The same thought seemed to have struck Malfoy.**_

"_**Catch it if you can, then!" he shouted, and he threw the glass ball high into the air and streaked back toward the ground.**_

_**Harry saw, as though in slow motion, the ball rise up in the air and then start to fall. He leaned forward and pointed his broom handle down—next second he was gathering speed in a steep dive, racing the ball—wind whistled in his ears, mingled with the screams of people watching—he stretched out his hand—a foot from the ground he caught it, just in time to pull his broom straight, and he toppled gently onto the grass with the Remembrall clutched safely in his fist.**_

Those who didn't know how good Harry was stared with gob smacked expressions while everyone else cheered.

"_**HARRY POTTER!"**_

_**His heart sank faster than he'd just dived. Professor McGonagall was running toward them. He got to his feet, trembling.**_

"_**Never**__**—in all my time at Hogwarts—"**_

_**Professor McGonagall was almost speechless with shock, and her glasses flashed furiously, "—how **__**dare **__**you—might have broken your neck—"**_

"_**It wasn't his fault, Professor—"**_

"_**Be quiet, Miss Patil—"**_

"_**But Malfoy—"**_

"_**That's **__**enough, **__**Mr. Weasley. Potter, follow me, now."**_

_**Harry caught sight of Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle's triumphant faces as he left, walking numbly in Professor McGonagall's wake as she strode toward the castle. He was going to be expelled, he just knew it. He wanted to say something to defend himself, but there seemed to be something wrong with his voice. Professor McGonagall was sweeping along without even looking at him; he had to jog to keep up. Now he'd done it. He hadn't even lasted two weeks. He'd be packing his bags in ten minutes. What would the Dursleys say when he turned up on the doorstep?**_

_**Up the front steps, up the marble staircase inside, and still Professor McGonagall didn't say a word to him. She wrenched open doors and marched along corridors with Harry trotting miserably behind her. Maybe she was taking him to Dumbledore. He thought of Hagrid, expelled but allowed to stay on as gamekeeper. Perhaps he could be Hagrid's assistant. His stomach twisted as he imagined it, watching Ron and the others becoming wizards while he stumped around the grounds carrying Hagrid's bag.**_

_**Professor McGonagall stopped outside a classroom. She opened the door and poked her head inside.**_

"_**Excuse me, Professor Flitwick, could I borrow Wood for a moment?"**_

_**Wood? Thought Harry, bewildered; was Wood a cane she was going to use on him?**_

Everyone turned to look at Harry, horror written on all their faces, to see that he had fallen asleep as Draco ran his fingers through his hair.

_**But Wood turned out to be a person, a burly fifth-year boy who came out of Flitwick's class looking confused.**_

"_**Follow me, you two," said Professor McGonagall, and they marched on up the corridor, Wood looking curiously at Harry.**_

"_**In here."**_

_**Professor McGonagall pointed them into a classroom that was empty except for Peeves, who was busy writing rude words on the blackboard. **_

"_**Out, Peeves!" she barked. Peeves threw the chalk into a bin, which clanged loudly, and he swooped out cursing. Professor**_

_**McGonagall slammed the door behind him and turned to face the two boys.**_

"_**Potter, this is Oliver Wood. Wood — I've found you a Seeker."**_

"That's how he made seeker?" Lucius asked incredulously. Severus and Draco just nodded proudly.

_**Wood's expression changed from puzzlement to delight.**_

"_**Are you serious, Professor?"**_

"_**Absolutely," said Professor McGonagall crisply. "The boy's a natural. I've never seen anything like it. Was that your first time on a broomstick, Potter?"**_

_**Harry nodded silently. He didn't have a clue what was going on, but he didn't seem to be being expelled, and some of the feeling started coming back to his legs.**_

"_**He caught that thing in his hand after a fifty-foot dive," Professor McGonagall told Wood. "Didn't even scratch himself. Charlie Weasley couldn't have done it."**_

_**Wood was now looking as though all his dreams had come true at once.**_

"_**Ever seen a game of Quidditch, Potter?" he asked excitedly.**_

"_**Wood's captain of the Gryffindor team," Professor McGonagall explained.**_

"_**He's just the build for a Seeker, too," said Wood, now walking around Harry and staring at him. "Light—speedy—we'll have to get him a decent broom, Professor—a Nimbus Two Thousand or a Cleansweep Seven, I'd say." **_

"_**I shall speak to Professor Dumbledore and see if we can't bend the first-year rule. Heaven knows, we need a better team than last year. **__**Flattened **__**in that last match by Slytherin, I couldn't look Severus Snape in the face for weeks..."**_

Severus grinned smugly.

_**Professor McGonagall peered sternly over her glasses at Harry.**_

"_**I want to hear you're training hard, Potter, or I may change my mind about punishing you."**_

_**Then she suddenly smiled.**_

"_**Your father would have been proud," she said. "He was an excellent Quidditch player himself."**_

"_**You're **__**joking.**__**"**_

_**It was dinnertime. Harry had just finished telling Ron what had happened when he'd left the grounds with Professor McGonagall.**_

_**Ron had a piece of steak and kidney pie halfway to his mouth, but he'd forgotten all about it.**_

"_**Seeker**__**?" he said. "But first years **__**never**__**—you must be the youngest House player in about—"**_

"—_**a century," said Harry, shoveling pie into his mouth. He felt particularly hungry after the excitement of the afternoon. "Wood told me."**_

_**Ron was so amazed, so impressed; he just sat and gaped at Harry.**_

"_**I start training next week," said Harry. "Only don't tell anyone, Wood wants to keep it a secret."**_

_**Fred and George Weasley now came into the hall, spotted Harry, and hurried over. **_

"_**Well done," said George in a low voice. "Wood told us. We're on the team too—Beaters."**_

"_**I tell you, we're going to win that Quidditch Cup for sure this year," said Fred. "We haven't won since Charlie left, but this year's team is going to be brilliant. You must be good, Harry, Wood was almost skipping when he told us."**_

"_**Anyway, we've got to go; Lee Jordan reckons he's found a new secret passageway out of the school."**_

"_**Bet it's that one behind the statue of Gregory the Smarmy that we found in our first week. See you."**_

"Took us three." Sirius said with a smile.

_**Fred and George had hardly disappeared when someone far less welcome turned up: Malfoy, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle.**_

"_**Having a last meal, Potter? When are you getting the train back to the Muggles?"**_

"_**You're a lot braver now that you're back on the ground and you've got your little friends with you," said Harry coolly. There was of course nothing at all little about Crabbe and Goyle, but as the High Table was full of teachers, neither of them could do more than crack their knuckles and scowl.**_

"_**I'd take you on anytime on my own," said Malfoy. "Tonight, if you want. Wizard's duel. Wands only—no contact. What's the matter? Never heard of a wizard's duel before, I suppose?"**_

"Draco..." Lucius growled.

"_**Of course he has," said Ron, wheeling around. "I'm his second, who's yours?"**_

_**Malfoy looked at Crabbe and Goyle, sizing them up.**_

"_**Crabbe," he said. "Midnight all right? We'll meet you in the trophy room; that's always unlocked."**_

"Should have known when you names Crabbe your second." Harry chuckled, startling everyone, Draco just shrugged.

_**When Malfoy had gone, Ron and Harry looked at each other.**_

"_**What **__**is **__**a wizard's duel?" said Harry. "And what do you mean, you're my second?"**_

"_**Well, a second's there to take over if you die," said Ron casually, getting started at last on his cold pie. Catching the look on Harry's face, he added quickly, "But people only die in proper duels, you know, with real wizards. The most you and Malfoy'll be able to do is send sparks at each other. Neither of you knows enough magic to do any real damage. I bet he expected you to refuse, anyway."**_

"I did."

"I would have if Ron hadn't accepted."

"_**And what if I wave my wand and nothing happens?"**_

"_**Throw it away and punch him on the nose," Ron suggested.**_

"How crass and utterly Weasley." Lucius snorted.

"Yea but it probably would have worked. I'll bet most of you don't know how to fight muggle style." Harry responded and Tom and Lucius looked thoughtful.

"_**Excuse me.**_

_**They both looked up. It was Hermione Granger.**_

"_**Can't a person eat in peace in this place?" said Ron.**_

_**Hermione ignored him and spoke to Harry.**_

"_**I couldn't help overhearing what you and Malfoy were saying—"**_

"_**Bet you could," Ron muttered.**_

"—_**and you **__**mustn't **__**go wandering around the school at night, think of the points you'll lose Gryffindor if you're caught, and you're bound to be. It's really very selfish of you."**_

"_**And it's really none of your business," said Harry.**_

"_**Good-bye," said Ron.**_

_**All the same, it wasn't what you'd call the perfect end to the day, Harry thought, as he lay awake much later listening to Dean and Seamus falling asleep (Neville wasn't back from the hospital wing). Ron had spent all evening giving him advice such as "If he tries to curse you, you'd better dodge it, because I can't remember how to block them." **_

"Wonderful advice." Tom stated dryly.

_**There was a very good chance they were going to get caught by Filch or Mrs. Norris, and Harry felt he was pushing his luck, breaking another school rule today. On the other hand, Malfoy's sneering face kept looming up out of the darkness—this was his big chance to beat Malfoy face-to-face. He couldn't miss it.**_

"_**Half-past eleven," Ron muttered at last, "we'd better go."**_

_**They pulled on their bathrobes, picked up their wands, and crept across the tower room, down the spiral staircase, and into the Gryffindor common room. A few embers were still glowing in the fireplace, turning all the armchairs into hunched black shadows.**_

_**They had almost reached the portrait hole when a voice spoke from the chair nearest them, "I can't believe you're going to do this, Harry."**_

_**A lamp flickered on. It was Hermione Granger, wearing a pink bathrobe and a frown.**_

"_**You**__**!" said Ron furiously. "Go back to bed!"**_

"_**I almost told your brother," Hermione snapped, "Percy—he's a prefect, he'd put a stop to this."**_

_**Harry couldn't believe anyone could be so interfering.**_

"_**Come on," he said to Ron. He pushed open the portrait of the**_

_**Fat Lady and climbed through the hole.**_

_**Hermione wasn't going to give up that easily. She followed Ron through the portrait hole, hissing at them like an angry goose.**_

"_**Don't you **__**care **__**about Gryffindor, do you **__**only **__**care about yourselves, **__**I **__**don't want Slytherin to win the House Cup, and you'll lose all the points I got from Professor McGonagall for knowing about Switching Spells."**_

"Merlin she's insufferable." Bellatrix whined.

"_**Go away."**_

"_**All right, but I warned you, you just remember what I said when you're on the train home tomorrow, you're so—"**_

_**But what they were, they didn't find out. Hermione had turned to the portrait of the Fat Lady to get back inside and found herself facing an empty painting. The Fat Lady had gone on a nighttime visit and Hermione was locked out of Gryffindor Tower.**_

"_**Now what am I going to do?" she asked shrilly.**_

"_**That's your problem," said Ron. "We've got to go, we're going to be late."**_

_**They hadn't even reached the end of the corridor when**_

_**Hermione caught up with them.**_

"_**I'm coming with you," she said.**_

"_**You are **__**not.**__**" **_

"_**D'you think I'm going to stand out here and wait for Filch to catch me? If he finds all three of us I'll tell him the truth, that I was trying to stop you, and you can back me up."**_

"At that point in time I probably would have." Harry remarked.

"_**You've got some nerve—" said Ron loudly.**_

"_**Shut up, both of you!" said Harry sharply. "I heard something."**_

_**It was a sort of snuffling.**_

"_**Mrs. Norris?" breathed Ron, squinting through the dark.**_

_**It wasn't Mrs. Norris. It was Neville. He was curled up on the floor, fast asleep, but jerked suddenly awake as they crept nearer.**_

"_**Thank goodness you found me! I've been out here for hours, I couldn't remember the new password to get in to bed."**_

"_**Keep your voice down, Neville. The password's 'Pig snout' but it won't help you now, the Fat Lady's gone off somewhere."**_

"_**How's your arm?" said Harry.**_

"_**Fine," said Neville, showing them. "Madam Pomfrey mended it in about a minute."**_

"_**Good—well, look, Neville, we've got to be somewhere, we'll see you later—"**_

"_**Don't leave me!" said Neville, scrambling to his feet, "I don't want to stay here alone, the Bloody Baron's been past twice already."**_

_**Ron looked at his watch and then glared furiously at Hermione and Neville.**_

"_**If either of you get us caught, I'll never rest until I've learned that Curse of the Bogies Quirrell told us about, and used it on you.**_

_**Hermione opened her mouth, perhaps to tell Ron exactly how to use the Curse of the Bogies, but Harry hissed at her to be quiet and beckoned them all forward.**_

_**They flitted along corridors striped with bars of moonlight from the high windows. At every turn Harry expected to run into Filch or Mrs. Norris, but they were lucky. They sped up a staircase to the third floor and tiptoed toward the trophy room.**_

_**Malfoy and Crabbe weren't there yet. The crystal trophy cases glimmered where the moonlight caught them. Cups, shields, plates, and statues winked silver and gold in the darkness. They edged along the walls, keeping their eyes on the doors at either end of the room. Harry took out his wand in case Malfoy leapt in and started at once. The minutes crept by.**_

"_**He's late, maybe he's chickened out," Ron whispered.**_

_**Then a noise in the next room made them jump. Harry had only just raised his wand when they heard someone speak—and it wasn't Malfoy.**_

"_**Sniff around, my sweet, they might be lurking in a corner."**_

_**It was Filch speaking to Mrs. Norris. Horror-struck, Harry waved madly at the other three to follow him as quickly as possible; they scurried silently toward the door, away from Filch's voice.**_

_**Neville's robes had barely whipped round the corner when they heard Filch enter the trophy room.**_

"_**They're in here somewhere," they heard him mutter, "probably hiding."**_

"_**This way!" Harry mouthed to the others and, petrified, they began to creep down a long gallery full of suits of armor. They could hear Filch getting nearer. Neville suddenly let out a frightened squeak and broke into a run-he tripped, grabbed Ron around the waist, and the pair of them toppled right into a suit of armor.**_

_**The clanging and crashing were enough to wake the whole castle.**_

"_**RUN!" Harry yelled, and the four of them sprinted down the gallery, not looking back to see whether Filch was following—they swung around the doorpost and galloped down one corridor then another, Harry in the lead, without any idea where they were or where they were going—they ripped through a tapestry and found themselves in a hidden passageway, hurtled along it and came out near their Charms classroom, which they knew was miles from the trophy room.**_

"_**I think we've lost him," Harry panted, leaning against the cold wall and wiping his forehead. Neville was bent double, wheezing and spluttering.**_

"_**I—**__**told**__**—you," Hermione gasped, clutching at the stitch in her chest, "I—told—you."**_

"_**We've got to get back to Gryffindor Tower," said Ron, "quickly as possible." **_

"_**Malfoy tricked you," Hermione said to Harry. "You realize that, don't you? He was never going to meet you—Filch knew someone was going to be in the trophy room, Malfoy must have tipped him off."**_

"Draco...!" Lucius and Narcissa whined.

_**Harry thought she was probably right, but he wasn't going to tell her that.**_

"_**Let's go."**_

_**It wasn't going to be that simple. They hadn't gone more than a dozen paces when a doorknob rattled and something came shooting out of a classroom in front of them.**_

_**It was Peeves. He caught sight of them and gave a squeal of delight.**_

"_**Shut up, Peeves—please—you'll get us thrown out."**_

_**Peeves cackled.**_

"_**Wandering around at midnight, Ickle Firsties? Tut, tut, tut.**_

_**Naughty, naughty, you'll get caughty."**_

"_**Not if you don't give us away, Peeves, please."**_

"_**Should tell Filch, I should," said Peeves in a sanity voice, but his eyes glittered wickedly. "It's for your own good, you know."**_

"_**Get out of the way," snapped Ron, taking a swipe at Peeves—this was a big mistake.**_

"Idiot!" George yelled.

"Is he trying to get you caught?" Fred asked.

"_**STUDENTS OUT OF BED!" Peeves bellowed, "STUDENTS OUT OF BED DOWN THE CHARMS CORRIDOR!"**_

_**Ducking under Peeves, they ran for their lives, right to the end of the corridor where they slammed into a door—and it was locked.**_

"_**This is it!" Ron moaned, as they pushed helplessly at the door, "We're done for! This is the end!"**_

_**They could hear footsteps, Filch running as fast as he could toward Peeves' shouts.**_

"_**Oh, move over," Hermione snarled. She grabbed Harry's wand, tapped the lock, and whispered, "**__**Alohomora**__**!"**_

_**The lock clicked and the door swung open—they piled through it, shut it quickly, and pressed their ears against it, listening.**_

"_**Which way did they go, Peeves?" Filch was saying. "Quick, tell me."**_

"_**Say 'please.' "**_

"_**Don't mess with me, Peeves, now **__**where did they go**__**?"**_

"_**Shan't say nothing if you don't say please," said Peeves in his annoying singsong voice.**_

"He won't tell." Sirius sighed.

"I taught him that." Remus said proudly.

"_**All right—**__**please.**__**"**_

"_**NOTHING! Ha haaa! Told you I wouldn't say nothing if you didn't say please! Ha ha! Haaaaaa!" And they heard the sound of Peeves whooshing away and Filch cursing in rage.**_

"_**He thinks this door is locked," Harry whispered. "I think we'll be okay—get **__**off, **__**Neville!" For Neville had been tugging on the sleeve of Harry's bathrobe for the last minute. "**__**What**__**?"**_

_**Harry turned around—and saw, quite clearly, what. For a moment, he was sure he'd walked into a nightmare—this was too much, on top of everything that had happened so far.**_

"Let me guess." Severus drawled.

"You're most likely right." Harry smirked at him.

_**They weren't in a room, as he had supposed. They were in a corridor. The forbidden corridor on the third floor. And now they knew why it was forbidden.**_

_**They were looking straight into the eyes of a monstrous dog, a dog that filled the whole space between ceiling and floor. It had three heads. Three pairs of rolling, mad eyes; three noses, twitching and quivering in their direction; three drooling mouths, saliva hanging in slippery ropes from yellowish fangs.**_

"What is that dog doing in a school full of children!" Bellatrix screeched.

_**It was standing quite still, all six eyes staring at them, and Harry knew that the only reason they weren't already dead was that their sudden appearance had taken it by surprise, but it was quickly getting over that, there was no mistaking what those thunderous growls meant.**_

_**Harry groped for the doorknob—between Filch and death, he'd take Filch.**_

"Good choice." The twins mumbled, white-faced.

_**They fell backward—Harry slammed the door shut, and they ran, they almost flew, back down the corridor. Filch must have hurried off to look for them somewhere else, because they didn't see him anywhere, but they hardly cared — all they wanted to do was put as much space as possible between them and that monster.**_

_**They didn't stop running until they reached the portrait of the Fat Lady on the seventh floor.**_

"_**Where on earth have you all been?" she asked, looking at their bathrobes hanging off their shoulders and their flushed, sweaty faces. **_

"_**Never mind that—pig snout, pig snout," panted Harry, and the portrait swung forward. They scrambled into the common room and collapsed, trembling, into armchairs.**_

_**It was a while before any of them said anything. Neville, indeed, looked as if he'd never speak again.**_

"_**What do they think they're doing, keeping a thing like that locked up in a school?" said Ron finally. "If any dog needs exercise, that one does."**_

_**Hermione had got both her breath and her bad temper back again.**_

"_**You don't use your eyes, any of you, do you?" she snapped.**_

"_**Didn't you see what it was standing on?"**_

"_**The floor?" Harry suggested. "I wasn't looking at its feet, I was too busy with its heads."**_

"As you should be." Tom interjected tensely.

"_**No, **__**not **__**the floor. It was standing on a trapdoor. It's obviously guarding something."**_

"What?" Several people whispered.

_**She stood up, glaring at them.**_

"_**I hope you're pleased with yourselves. We could all have been killed—or worse, expelled. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to bed."**_

"Wow...talk about priorities." Tom muttered.

_**Ron stared after her, his mouth open.**_

"_**No, we don't mind," he said. "You'd think we dragged her along, wouldn't you?"**_

_**But Hermione had given Harry something else to think about as he climbed back into bed. The dog was guarding something...What had Hagrid said? Gringotts was the safest place in the world for something you wanted to hide—except perhaps Hogwarts.**_

_**It looked as though Harry had found out where the grubby little package from vault seven hundred and thirteen was.**_

"Sweet Circe Harry! You are far too curious and intelligent for my own good." Tom complained and Harry laughed.

"Sorry. Who's reading next?"

"Me! Pick me!" Fred said bouncing up and down.


	13. Chapter 12

_**HALLOWEEN**_

_**Malfoy couldn't believe his eyes when he saw that Harry and Ron were still at Hogwarts the next day, looking tired but perfectly cheerful. Indeed, by the next morning Harry and Ron thought that meeting the three-headed dog had been an excellent adventure, and they were quite keen to have another one. **_

"Of course." Severus mumbled shaking his head. Sirius nodded enthusiastically and Remus gave Harry a 'don't you dare' look.

_**In the meantime, Harry filled Ron in about the package that seemed to have been moved from Gringotts to Hogwarts, and they spent a lot of time wondering what could possibly need such heavy protection.**_

"_**It's either really valuable or really dangerous," said Ron.**_

"Or both." Tom said.

"_**Or both," said Harry.**_

"See?" Tom snickered as Harry's face flushed.

_**But as all they knew for sure about the mysterious object was that it was about two inches long, they didn't have much chance of guessing what it was without further clues.**_

_**Neither Neville nor Hermione showed the slightest interest in what lay underneath the dog and the trapdoor. All Neville cared about was never going near the dog again.**_

"As it should be." Narcissa scolded, wagging finger and all. "It was not an adventure but a life threatening situation."

_**Hermione was now refusing to speak to Harry and Ron, but she was such a bossy know-it-all that they saw this as an added bonus.**_

"Harry!" Remus threw his hands up in exasperation. Harry just smiled sheepishly.

_**All they really wanted now was a way of getting back at Malfoy, and to their great delight, just such a thing arrived in the mail about a week later.**_

_**As the owls flooded into the Great Hall as usual, everyone's attention was caught at once by a long, thin package carried by six large screech owls. Harry was just as interested as everyone else to see what was in this large parcel, and was amazed when the owls soared down and dropped it right in front of him, knocking his bacon to the floor. They had hardly fluttered out of the way when another owl dropped a letter on top of the parcel.**_

_**Harry ripped open the letter first, which was lucky, because it**_

_**said:**_

_**DO NOT OPEN THE PARCEL AT THE TABLE.**_

_**It contains your new Nimbus Two Thousand, but I don't want everybody knowing you've got a broomstick or they'll all want one. Oliver Wood will meet you tonight on the Quidditch field at seven o'clock for your first training session.**_

"Wow, talk about preferential treatment." Lucius muttered and Severus raised an eyebrow at him.

_**Harry had difficulty hiding his glee as he handed the note to Ron to read.**_

"_**A Nimbus Two Thousand!" Ron moaned enviously. "I've never even **__**touched **__**one."**_

_**They left the hall quickly, wanting to unwrap the broomstick in private before their first class, but halfway across the entrance hall they found the way upstairs barred by Crabbe and Goyle. Malfoy seized the package from Harry and felt it.**_

"_**That's a broomstick," he said, throwing it back to Harry with a mixture of jealousy and spite on his face. "You'll be in for it this time, Potter, first years aren't allowed them."**_

_**Ron couldn't resist it.**_

"Of course he can't." Draco sneered.

"_**It's not any old broomstick," he said, "It's a Nimbus Two Thousand. What did you say you've got at home, Malfoy, a Comet Two Sixty?" Ron grinned at Harry. "Comets look flashy, but they're not in the same league as the Nimbus."**_

"_**What would you know about it, Weasley, you couldn't afford half the handle," Malfoy snapped back. "I suppose you and your brothers have to save up twig by twig."**_

Draco's face fell. "Merlin, I'm so sorry." The Weasleys just shrugged.

_**Before Ron could answer, Professor Flitwick appeared at Malfoy's elbow.**_

"_**Not arguing, I hope, boys?" he squeaked.**_

"_**Potters been sent a broomstick, Professor," said Malfoy quickly.**_

"_**Yes, yes, that's right," said Professor Flitwick, beaming at Harry. "Professor McGonagall told me all about the special circumstances, Potter. And what model is it?"**_

"_**A Nimbus Two Thousand, sir," said Harry, fighting not to laugh at the look of horror on Malfoy's face. "And it's really thanks to Malfoy here that I've got it," he added.**_

_**Harry and Ron headed upstairs, smothering their laughter at Malfoy's obvious rage and confusion.**_

"_**Well, it's true," Harry chortled as they reached the top of the marble staircase, "If he hadn't stolen Neville's Remembrall I wouldn't be on the team..."**_

"_**So I suppose you think that's a reward for breaking rules?" came an angry voice from just behind them. Hermione was stomping up the stairs, looking disapprovingly at the package in Harry's hand.**_

"_**I thought you weren't speaking to us?" said Harry.**_

"_**Yes, don't stop now;" said Ron, "it's doing us so much good."**_

_**Hermione marched away with her nose in the air.**_

_**Harry had a lot of trouble keeping his mind on his lessons that day. It kept wandering up to the dormitory where his new broomstick was lying under his bed, or straying off to the Quidditch field where he'd be learning to play that night. He bolted his dinner that evening without noticing what he was eating, and then rushed upstairs with Ron to unwrap the Nimbus Two Thousand at last.**_

"_**Wow," Ron sighed, as the broomstick rolled onto Harry's bedspread.**_

_**Even Harry, who knew nothing about the different brooms, thought it looked wonderful. Sleek and shiny, with a mahogany handle, it had a long tail of neat, straight twigs and Nimbus Two Thousand written in gold near the top.**_

_**As seven o'clock drew nearer, Harry left the castle and set off in the dusk toward the Quidditch field. He'd never been inside the stadium before. Hundreds of seats were raised in stands around the field so that the spectators were high enough to see what was going on. At either end of the field were three golden poles with hoops on the end. They reminded Harry of the little plastic sticks Muggle children blew bubbles through, except that they were fifty feet high.**_

"I thought the same thing." Luna said in her dreamy voice.

_**Too eager to fly again to wait for Wood, Harry mounted his broomstick and kicked off from the ground. What a feeling—he swooped in and out of the goal posts and then sped up and down the field. The Nimbus Two Thousand turned wherever he wanted at his lightest touch.**_

"_**Hey, Potter, come down!"**_

_**Oliver Wood had arrived. He was carrying a large wooden crate under his arm. Harry landed next to him.**_

"_**Very nice," said Wood, his eyes glinting. "I see what McGonagall meant...you really are a natural. I'm just going to teach you the rules this evening, then you'll be joining team practice three times a week."**_

_**He opened the crate. Inside were four different-sized balls.**_

"_**Right," said Wood. "Now, Quidditch is easy enough to understand, even if it's not too easy to play. There are seven players on each side. Three of them are called Chasers."**_

"_**Three Chasers," Harry repeated, as Wood took out a bright red ball about the size of a soccer ball.**_

"_**This ball's called the Quaffle," said Wood. "The Chasers throw the Quaffle to each other and try and get it through one of the hoops to score a goal. Ten points every time the Quaffle goes through one of the hoops. Follow me?"**_

"_**The Chasers throw the Quaffle and put it through the hoops to score," Harry recited. "So—that's sort of like basketball on broomsticks with six hoops, isn't it?"**_

"_**What's basketball?" said Wood curiously.**_

"_**Never mind," said Harry quickly.**_

"_**Now, there's another player on each side who's called the**_

_**Keeper—I'm Keeper for Gryffindor. I have to fly around our hoops and stop the other team from scoring."**_

"_**Three Chasers, one Keeper," said Harry, who was determined to remember it all. "And they play with the Quaffle. Okay, got that. So what are they for?" He pointed at the three balls left inside the box.**_

"_**I'll show you now," said Wood. "Take this."**_

_**He handed Harry a small club, a bit like a short baseball bat.**_

"_**I'm going to show you what the Bludgers do," Wood said. "These two are the Bludgers."**_

_**He showed Harry two identical balls, jet black and slightly smaller than the red Quaffle. Harry noticed that they seemed to be straining to escape the straps holding them inside the box.**_

"_**Stand back," Wood warned Harry. He bent down and freed one of the Bludgers.**_

_**At once, the black ball rose high in the air and then pelted straight at Harry's face. Harry swung at it with the bat to stop it from breaking his nose, and sent it zigzagging away into the air—it zoomed around their heads and then shot at Wood, who dived on top of it and managed to pin it to the ground.**_

"_**See?" Wood panted, forcing the struggling Bludger back into the crate and strapping it down safely. "The Bludgers rocket around, trying to knock players off their brooms. That's why you have two Beaters on each team—the Weasley twins are ours—it's their job to protect their side from the Bludgers and try and knock them toward the other team. So—think you've got all that?"**_

"_**Three Chasers try and score with the Quaffle; the Keeper guards the goal posts; the Beaters keep the Bludgers away from their team," Harry reeled off.**_

"_**Very good," said Wood.**_

"_**Er—have the Bludgers ever killed anyone?" Harry asked, hoping he sounded offhand.**_

"_**Never at Hogwarts. We've had a couple of broken jaws but nothing worse than that. Now, the last member of the team is the Seeker. That's you. And you don't have to worry about the Quaffle or the Bludgers—"**_

"—_**unless they crack my head open."**_

"_**Don't worry, the Weasleys are more than a match for the**_

_**Bludgers—I mean, they're like a pair of human Bludgers themselves."**_

Both twins got up and started bowing. "Thank you, thank you."

"Oh sit down you prats." Ginny said dryly.

_**Wood reached into the crate and took out the fourth and last ball. Compared with the Quaffle and the Bludgers, it was tiny, about the size of a large walnut. It was bright gold and had little fluttering silver wings.**_

"_**This,**__**" said Wood, "is the Golden Snitch, and it's the most important ball of the lot. It's very hard to catch because it's so fast and difficult to see. It's the Seeker's job to catch it. You've got to weave in and out of the Chasers, Beaters, Bludgers, and Quaffle to get it before the other team's Seeker, because whichever Seeker catches the Snitch wins his team an extra hundred and fifty points, so they nearly always win. That's why Seekers get fouled so much. A game of Quidditch only ends when the Snitch is caught, so it can go on for ages—I think the record is three months, they had to keep bringing on substitutes so the players could get some sleep.**_

"_**Well, that's it—any questions?"**_

_**Harry shook his head. He understood what he had to do all right, it was doing it that was going to be the problem.**_

"_**We won't practice with the Snitch yet," said Wood, carefully shutting it back inside the crate, "it's too dark, we might lose it. Let's try you out with a few of these."**_

_**He pulled a bag of ordinary golf balls out of his pocket and a few minutes later, he and Harry were up in the air, Wood throwing the golf balls as hard as he could in every direction for Harry to catch.**_

_**Harry didn't miss a single one, and Wood was delighted. After half an hour, night had really fallen and they couldn't carry on.**_

"_**That Quidditch Cup'll have our name on it this year," said**_

_**Wood happily as they trudged back up to the castle. "I wouldn't be surprised if you turn out better than Charlie Weasley, and he could have played for England if he hadn't gone off chasing dragons."**_

_**Perhaps it was because he was now so busy, what with Quidditch practice three evenings a week on top of all his homework, but**_

_**Harry could hardly believe it when he realized that he'd already been at Hogwarts two months. The castle felt more like home than**_

_**Privet Drive ever had.**_

Severus and Tom both smiled a little, remembering how that felt.

_**His lessons, too, were becoming more and more interesting now that they had mastered the basics.**_

_**On Halloween morning they woke to the delicious smell of baking pumpkin wafting through the corridors. Even better, Professor**_

_**Flitwick announced in Charms that he thought they were ready to start making objects fly, something they had all been dying to try since they'd seen him make Neville's toad zoom around the classroom. Professor Flitwick put the class into pairs to practice. Harry's partner was Seamus Finnigan (which was a relief, because Neville had been trying to catch his eye). Ron, however, was to be working with Hermione Granger. It was hard to tell whether Ron or Hermione was angrier about this. She hadn't spoken to either of them since the day Harry's broomstick had arrived.**_

"_**Now, don't forget that nice wrist movement we've been practicing!" squeaked Professor Flitwick, perched on top of his pile of books as usual. "Swish and flick, remember, swish and flick. And saying the magic words properly is very important, too—never forget Wizard Baruffio, who said 's' instead of 'f ' and found himself on the floor with a buffalo on his chest."**_

_**It was very difficult. Harry and Seamus swished and flicked, but the feather they were supposed to be sending skyward just lay on the desktop. Seamus got so impatient that he prodded it with his wand and set fire to it — Harry had to put it out with his hat.**_

_**Ron, at the next table, wasn't having much more luck.**_

"_**Wingardium Leviosa**__**!" he shouted, waving his long arms like a windmill.**_

"_**You're saying it wrong," Harry heard Hermione snap. "It's**_

_**Wing-**__**gar**__**-dium Levi-**__**o**__**-sa, make the 'gar' nice and long."**_

"_**You do it, then, if you're so clever," Ron snarled.**_

"Now he's done it." Harry snickered.

"What do you mean?" Tom asked.

"You never challenge Granger because she'll do it just to spite you." Severus, Lucius, Sirius and Tom all nodded their heads having had friends like that.

_**Hermione rolled up the sleeves of her gown, flicked her wand, and said, "**__**Wingardium Leviosa**__**!"**_

_**Their feather rose off the desk and hovered about four feet above their heads.**_

"_**Oh, well done!" cried Professor Flitwick, clapping. "Everyone see here, Miss Granger's done it!"**_

_**Ron was in a very bad mood by the end of the class.**_

"_**It's no wonder no one can stand her," he said to Harry as they pushed their way into the crowded corridor, "she's a nightmare, honestly."**_

_**Someone knocked into Harry as they hurried past him. It was Hermione. Harry caught a glimpse of her face—and was startled to see that she was in tears.**_

"_**I think she heard you."**_

"_**So?" said Ron, but he looked a bit uncomfortable. "She must've noticed she's got no friends."**_

"He's unbelievable!" Narcissa scowled at the book.

"Yea, he's really not any better now."

_**Hermione didn't turn up for the next class and wasn't seen all afternoon. On their way down to the Great Hall for the Halloween feast, Harry and Ron overheard Parvati Patil telling her friend**_

_**Lavender that Hermione was crying in the girls' bathroom and wanted to be left alone. Ron looked still more awkward at this, but a moment later they had entered the Great Hall, where the Halloween decorations put Hermione out of their minds.**_

_**A thousand live bats fluttered from the walls and ceiling while a thousand more swooped over the tables in low black clouds, making the candles in the pumpkins stutter. The feast appeared suddenly on the golden plates, as it had at the start-of-term banquet.**_

_**Harry was just helping himself to a baked potato when Professor**_

_**Quirrell came sprinting into the hall, his turban askew and terror on his face. Everyone stared as he reached Professor Dumbledore's chair, slumped against the table, and gasped, "Troll—in the dungeons—thought you ought to know."**_

"Hey! He didn't stutter!" Sirius yelled. Harry grimaced and Tom looked guilty but the only one who noticed was Severus.

_**He then sank to the floor in a dead faint.**_

Narcissa looked incredulous. "Seriously!"

Severus grimaced this time.

_**There was uproar. It took several purple firecrackers exploding from the end of Professor Dumbledore's wand to bring silence.**_

"_**Prefects," he rumbled, "lead your Houses back to the dormitories immediately!"**_

"Wait Slytherin and Hufflepuff are in the dudgeons." Remus pointed out.

"The Prefects took us all to the library." Draco said quickly, seeing his mother getting distressed.

_**Percy was in his element.**_

"_**Follow me! Stick together, first years! No need to fear the troll if you follow my orders! Stay close behind me, now. Make way, first years coming through! Excuse me, I'm a prefect!"**_

"_**How could a troll get in?" Harry asked as they climbed the stairs.**_

"_**Don't ask me, they're supposed to be really stupid," said Ron.**_

"_**Maybe Peeves let it in for a Halloween joke."**_

"Even Peeves wouldn't put the students at risk like that." Sirius said.

_**They passed different groups of people hurrying in different directions. As they jostled their way through a crowd of confused Hufflepuffs, Harry suddenly grabbed Ron's arm.**_

"_**I've just thought—Hermione."**_

"_**What about her?"**_

"_**She doesn't know about the troll."**_

_**Ron bit his lip.**_

"_**Oh, all right," he snapped. "But Percy'd better not see us."**_

_**Ducking down, they joined the Hufflepuffs going the other way, slipped down a deserted side corridor, and hurried off toward the girls' bathroom. They had just turned the corner when they heard quick footsteps behind them.**_

"_**Percy!" hissed Ron, pulling Harry behind a large stone griffin.**_

_**Peering around it, however, they saw not Percy but Snape. He crossed the corridor and disappeared from view.**_

"Dear Merlin." Severus mumbled to himself as everyone turned to look at him.

"_**What's he doing?" Harry whispered. "Why isn't he down in the dungeons with the rest of the teachers?"**_

"_**Search me."**_

_**Quietly as possible, they crept along the next corridor after**_

_**Snape's fading footsteps.**_

"_**He's heading for the third floor," Harry said, but Ron held up his hand.**_

"_**Can you smell something?"**_

_**Harry sniffed and a foul stench reached his nostrils, a mixture of old socks and the kind of public toilet no one seems to clean.**_

_**And then they heard it—a low grunting, and the shuffling footfalls of gigantic feet. Ron pointed—at the end of a passage to the left, something huge was moving toward them. They shrank into the shadows and watched as it emerged into a patch of moonlight.**_

_**It was a horrible sight. Twelve feet tall, its skin was a dull, granite gray, its great lumpy body like a boulder with its small bald head perched on top like a coconut. It had short legs thick as tree trunks with flat, horny feet. The smell coming from it was incredible. It was holding a huge wooden club, which dragged along the floor because its arms were so long.**_

_**The troll stopped next to a doorway and peered inside. It waggled its long ears, making up its tiny mind, then slouched slowly into the room.**_

"_**The key's in the lock," Harry muttered. "We could lock it in."**_

"_**Good idea," said Ron nervously.**_

_**They edged toward the open door, mouths dry, praying the troll wasn't about to come out of it. With one great leap, Harry managed to grab the key, slam the door, and lock it.**_

"_**Yes**__**!"**_

_**Flushed with their victory, they started to run back up the passage, but as they reached the corner they heard something that made their hearts stop—a high, petrified scream—and it was coming from the chamber they'd just chained up.**_

"_**Oh, no," said Ron, pale as the Bloody Baron.**_

"_**It's the girls' bathroom!" Harry gasped.**_

"Of course it is." Luna said anxiously.

"_**Hermione**__**!" they said together.**_

_**It was the last thing they wanted to do, but what choice did they have? Wheeling around, they sprinted back to the door and turned the key, fumbling in their panic. Harry pulled the door open and they ran inside.**_

_**Hermione Granger was shrinking against the wall opposite, looking as if she was about to faint. The troll was advancing on her, knocking the sinks off the walls as it went.**_

"_**Confuse it!" Harry said desperately to Ron, and, seizing a tap, he threw it as hard as he could against the wall.**_

"That's actually a good plan," Tom said feeling slightly better.

_**The troll stopped a few feet from Hermione. It lumbered around, blinking stupidly, to see what had made the noise. Its mean little eyes saw Harry. It hesitated, then made for him instead, lifting its club as it went.**_

"_**Oy, pea-brain!" yelled Ron from the other side of the chamber, and he threw a metal pipe at it. The troll didn't even seem to notice the pipe hitting its shoulder, but it heard the yell and paused again, turning its ugly snout toward Ron instead, giving Harry time to run around it.**_

"_**Come on, run, **__**run**__**!" Harry yelled at Hermione, trying to pull her toward the door, but she couldn't move, she was still flat against the wall, her mouth open with terror.**_

_**The shouting and the echoes seemed to be driving the troll berserk. It roared again and started toward Ron, who was nearest and had no way to escape.**_

_**Harry then did something that was both very brave and very stupid:**_

Ginny snorted. "Always." Harry just blinked at her as she turned red. Fred cleared his throat before continuing.

_**He took a great running jump and managed to fasten his arms around the troll's neck from behind.**_

"Harry!" Remus, Narcissa and Bellatrix shrieked. "Are you crazy?!" Severus just put his head in his hands.

_**The troll couldn't feel Harry hanging there, but even a troll will notice if you stick a long bit of wood up its nose, and Harry's wand had still been in his hand when he'd jumped—it had gone straight up one of the troll's nostrils.**_

_**Howling with pain, the troll twisted and flailed its club, with**_

_**Harry clinging on for dear life; any second, the troll was going to rip him off or catch him a terrible blow with the club.**_

_**Hermione had sunk to the floor in fright; Ron pulled out his own wand—not knowing what he was going to do he heard himself cry the first spell that came into his head: "**__**Wingardium Leviosa**__**!"**_

_**The club flew suddenly out of the troll's hand, rose high, high up into the air, turned slowly over—and dropped, with a sickening crack, onto its owner's head. The troll swayed on the spot and then fell flat on its face, with a thud that made the whole room tremble.**_

_**Harry got to his feet. He was shaking and out of breath. Ron was standing there with his wand still raised, staring at what he had done.**_

_**It was Hermione who spoke first.**_

"_**Is it—dead?"**_

"_**I don't think so," said Harry, "I think it's just been knocked out."**_

_**He bent down and pulled his wand out of the troll's nose. It was covered in what looked like lumpy gray glue.**_

"_**Urgh—troll boogers."**_

_**He wiped it on the troll's trousers.**_

_**A sudden slamming and loud footsteps made the three of them look up. They hadn't realized what a racket they had been making, but of course, someone downstairs must have heard the crashes and the troll's roars. A moment later, Professor McGonagall had come bursting into the room, closely followed by Snape, with Quirrell bringing up the rear. Quirrell took one look at the troll, let out a faint whimper, and sat quickly down on a toilet, clutching his heart.**_

_**Snape bent over the troll. Professor McGonagall was looking at Ron and Harry. Harry had never seen her look so angry. Her lips were white. Hopes of winning fifty points for Gryffindor faded quickly from Harry's mind.**_

"_**What on earth were you thinking of?" said Professor McGonagall, with cold fury in her voice. Harry looked at Ron, who was still standing with his wand in the air. "You're lucky you weren't killed. Why aren't you in your dormitory?"**_

_**Snape gave Harry a swift, piercing look. Harry looked at the floor. He wished Ron would put his wand down.**_

_**Then a small voice came out of the shadows.**_

"_**Please, Professor McGonagall—they were looking for me."**_

"_**Miss Granger!"**_

_**Hermione had managed to get to her feet at last.**_

"_**I went looking for the troll because I—I thought I could deal with it on my own—you know, because I've read all about them."**_

"She lied to"

"A teacher?" The twins asked shocked.

"I knew it!" Severus exclaimed.

_**Ron dropped his wand. Hermione Granger, telling a downright lie to a teacher?**_

"_**If they hadn't found me, I'd be dead now. Harry stuck his wand up its nose and Ron knocked it out with its own club. They didn't have time to come and fetch anyone. It was about to finish me off when they arrived."**_

_**Harry and Ron tried to look as though this story wasn't new to them.**_

"You failed." Severus deadpanned and Harry turned red.

"_**Well—in that case..." said Professor McGonagall, staring at the three of them, "Miss Granger, you foolish girl, how could you think of tackling a mountain troll on your own?"**_

_**Hermione hung her head. Harry was speechless. Hermione was the last person to do anything against the rules, and here she was, pretending she had, to get them out of trouble. It was as if Snape had started handing out sweets.**_

Everyone started snickering and Severus got a gleam in his eye.

"_**Miss Granger, five points will be taken from Gryffindor for this," said Professor McGonagall. "I'm very disappointed in you. If you're not hurt at all, you'd better get off to Gryffindor Tower. Students are finishing the feast in their Houses."**_

_**Hermione left.**_

_**Professor McGonagall turned to Harry and Ron.**_

"_**Well, I still say you were lucky, but not many first years could have taken on a full-grown mountain troll. You each win Gryffindor five points. Professor Dumbledore will be informed of this. You may go."**_

_**They hurried out of the chamber and didn't speak at all until they had climbed two floors up. It was a relief to be away from the smell of the troll, quite apart from anything else.**_

"_**We should have gotten more than ten points," Ron grumbled.**_

"_**Five, you mean, once she's taken off Hermione's."**_

"_**Good of her to get us out of trouble like that," Ron admitted. "Mind you, we **__**did **__**save her."**_

"She wouldn't have been in the bathroom if you hadn't been an arse." Bellatrix sneered.

"_**She might not have needed saving if we hadn't locked the thing in with her," Harry reminded him.**_

"That too." She added as an afterthought.

_**They had reached the portrait of the Fat Lady.**_

"_**Pig snout," they said and entered.**_

_**The common room was packed and noisy. Everyone was eating the food that had been sent up. Hermione, however, stood alone by the door, waiting for them. There was a very embarrassed pause. Then, none of them looking at each other, they all said "Thanks," and hurried off to get plates.**_

_**But from that moment on, Hermione Granger became their friend. There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them.**_

"That's how you became friends?" Draco asked, sounding upset.

"Yea...or rather that's when she started getting paid too." Silence rang through the room till Bellatrix jumped up.

"Me next!"


	14. Chapter 13

_**QUIDDITCH**_

_**As they entered November, the weather turned very cold. The mountains around the school became icy gray and the lake like chilled steel. Every morning the ground was covered in frost. Hagrid could be seen from the upstairs windows defrosting broomsticks on the Quidditch field, bundled up in a long moleskin overcoat, rabbit fur gloves, and enormous beaver skin boots.**_

_**The Quidditch season had begun. On Saturday, Harry would be playing in his first match after weeks of training: Gryffindor versus Slytherin. **_

"The most anticipated game of the year." Sirius said excitedly.

"Well yeah, Slytherin vs. Gryffindor is the biggest rivalry in the school." Draco said.

"Yep and ours was the biggest rivalry since the Marauders vs. Severus." Harry laughed while Sirius turned red, Severus scowled and Remus shook his head.

_**If Gryffindor won, they would move up into second place in the House Championship.**_

_**Hardly anyone had seen Harry play because Wood had decided that, as their secret weapon, Harry should be kept, well, secret. But the news that he was playing Seeker had leaked out somehow, **_

"Well Duh! There's no such,"

"Thing as secrets at Hogwarts." Fred and George said pulling serious faces before Ginny started laughing.

_**and Harry didn't know which was worse—people telling him he'd be brilliant or people telling him they'd be running around underneath him holding a mattress.**_

"Well the way you play you'll need that mattress." Severus said with a smirk as the twins, Ginny, Luna and Draco laughed.

"Hey!" Harry yelled in mock indignation.

_**It was really lucky that Harry now had Hermione as a friend. He didn't know how he'd have gotten through all his homework without her, what with all the last-minute Quidditch practice Wood was making them do. She had also lent him **__**Quidditch Through the**____**Ages, **__**which turned out to be a very interesting read.**_

_**Harry learned that there were seven hundred ways of committing a Quidditch foul and that all of them had happened during a World Cup match in 1473; that Seekers were usually the smallest and fastest players, and that most serious Quidditch accidents seemed to happen to them; that although people rarely died playing Quidditch, referees had been known to vanish and turn up months later in the Sahara Desert.**_

_**Hermione had become a bit more relaxed about breaking rules since Harry and Ron had saved her from the mountain troll, and she was much nicer for it. The day before Harry's first Quidditch match the three of them were out in the freezing courtyard during break, and she had conjured them up a bright blue fire that could be carried around in a jam jar. They were standing with their backs to it, getting warm, when Snape crossed the yard. Harry noticed at once that Snape was limping. **_

"Of course you did." Severus muttered.

_**Harry, Ron, and Hermione moved closer together to block the fire from view; they were sure it wouldn't be allowed. **_

"It's not." Remus stated with a disapproving frown at the book.

_**Unfortunately, something about their guilty faces caught Snape's eye. He limped over. He hadn't seen the fire, but he seemed to be looking for a reason to tell them off anyway.**_

"_**What's that you've got there, Potter?"**_

_**It was **__**Quidditch Through the Ages. **__**Harry showed him.**_

"_**Library books are not to be taken outside the school," said Snape. "Give it to me. Five points from Gryffindor."**_

"Really Severus?" Narcissa asked eyebrow raised. Severus just shrugged.

"_**He's just made that rule up," **_

"I did not! It's a real rule." Harry looked to Remus who nodded his head in conformation.

"Well then I'm sorry." Harry said, head bowed.

_**Harry muttered angrily as Snape limped away. "Wonder what's wrong with his leg?"**_

"_**Dunno, but I hope it's really hurting him," said Ron bitterly.**_

"How considerate." Bellatrix sneered.

_**The Gryffindor common room was very noisy that evening. Harry, Ron, and Hermione sat together next to a window. Hermione was checking Harry and Ron's Charms homework for them. She would never let them copy ("How will you learn?"), but by asking her to read it through, they got the right answers anyway.**_

_**Harry felt restless. He wanted **__**Quidditch through the Ages **__**back, to take his mind off his nerves about tomorrow. Why should he be afraid of Snape? Getting up, he told Ron and Hermione he was going to ask Snape if he could have it.**_

"_**Better you than me," they said together, but Harry had an idea that Snape wouldn't refuse if there were other teachers listening.**_

_**He made his way down to the staffroom and knocked. There was no answer. He knocked again. Nothing.**_

"Did you really not hear me?" Harry asked.

"Nope, it's hard to hear someone knocking on that door." Harry nodded.

_**Perhaps Snape had left the book in there? It was worth a try. He pushed the door ajar and peered inside — and a horrible scene met his eyes.**_

"What?!" The twins yelled excitedly.

_**Snape and Filch were inside, alone. **_

Sirius, Ginny and the twins started snickering.

_**Snape was holding his robes above his knees. **_

Everyone was laughing while Severus scowled at Harry, who just shrugged.

_**One of his legs was bloody and mangled. Filch was handing Snape bandages.**_

"What did you do?" Narcissa whined.

"_**Blasted thing," Snape was saying. "How are you supposed to keep your eyes on all three heads at once?"**_

_**Harry tried to shut the door quietly, but—**_

"_**POTTER!"**_

"Of course." Draco giggled as Harry started poking him in the side.

_**Snape's face was twisted with fury as he dropped his robes quickly to hide his leg. Harry gulped.**_

"_**I just wondered if I could have my book back."**_

"Brave." Fred and George whistled.

"_**GET OUT! **__**OUT**__**!"**_

_**Harry left, before Snape could take any more points from Gryffindor. He sprinted back upstairs.**_

"_**Did you get it?" Ron asked as Harry joined them. "What's the matter?"**_

_**In a low whisper, Harry told them what he'd seen.**_

"_**You know what this means?" he finished breathlessly. "He tried to get past that three-headed dog at Halloween! That's where he was going when we saw him—he's after whatever it's guarding!**_

_**And I'd bet my broomstick **__**he **__**let that troll in, to make a diversion!"**_

Everyone but Harry and Tom turned to look at Severus. Tom and Harry looked at each other.

_**Hermione's eyes were wide.**_

"_**No—he wouldn't," she said. "I know he's not very nice, but he wouldn't try and steal something Dumbledore was keeping safe."**_

"_**Honestly, Hermione, you think all teachers are saints or something," snapped Ron. "I'm with Harry. I wouldn't put anything past Snape. But what's he after? What's that dog guarding?"**_

_**Harry went to bed with his head buzzing with the same question.**_

_**Neville was snoring loudly, but Harry couldn't sleep. He tried to empty his mind—he needed to sleep, he had to, he had his first Quidditch match in a few hours—but the expression on Snape's face when Harry had seen his leg wasn't easy to forget.**_

_**The next morning dawned very bright and cold. The Great Hall was full of the delicious smell of fried sausages and the cheerful chatter of everyone looking forward to a good Quidditch match.**_

"_**You've got to eat some breakfast."**_

"_**I don't want anything."**_

"_**Just a bit of toast," wheedled Hermione.**_

"_**I'm not hungry."**_

_**Harry felt terrible. In an hour's time he'd be walking onto the field.**_

"_**Harry, you need your strength," said Seamus Finnigan. "Seekers are always the ones who get clobbered by the other team."**_

"How very helpful." Luna said and Ginny turned to stare at her.

"No...just no." She said shaking her head.

"_**Thanks, Seamus," said Harry, watching Seamus pile ketchup on his sausages.**_

_**By eleven o'clock the whole school seemed to be out in the stands around the Quidditch pitch. Many students had binoculars. The seats might be raised high in the air, but it was still difficult to see what was going on sometimes.**_

_**Ron and Hermione joined Neville, Seamus, and Dean the West Ham fan up in the top row. As a surprise for Harry, they had painted a large banner on one of the sheets Scabbers had ruined. It said **__**Potter for President, **__**and Dean, who was good at drawing, had done a large Gryffindor lion underneath. Then Hermione had performed a tricky little charm so that the paint flashed different colors.**_

_**Meanwhile, in the locker room, Harry and the rest of the team were changing into their scarlet Quidditch robes (Slytherin would be playing in green).**_

_**Wood cleared his throat for silence.**_

"Okay men." Fred started.

"And women." George picked up.

"And women, this is it."

"The big one."

"The one we've all been waiting for."

"This is the best team Gryffindor's had in years."

"We're going to win. I know it." Then finish with a look that clearly said 'or else' as Harry was bent over laughing.

"_**Okay, men," he said.**_

"_**And women," said Chaser Angelina Johnson.**_

"_**And women," Wood agreed. "This is it."**_

"_**The big one," said Fred Weasley.**_

"_**The one we've all been waiting for," said George.**_

"_**We know Oliver's speech by heart," Fred told Harry, "we were on the team last year."**_

"_**Shut up, you two," said Wood. "This is the best team Gryffindor's had in years. We're going to win. I know it."**_

_**He glared at them all as if to say, "Or else."**_

"_**Right. It's time. Good luck, all of you."**_

_**Harry followed Fred and George out of the locker room and, hoping his knees weren't going to give way, walked onto the field to loud cheers.**_

_**Madam Hooch was refereeing. She stood in the middle of the field waiting for the two teams, her broom in her hand.**_

"_**Now, I want a nice fair game, all of you," she said, once they were all gathered around her. Harry noticed that she seemed to be speaking particularly to the Slytherin Captain, Marcus Flint, a fifth year. Harry thought Flint looked as if he had some troll blood in him. **_

Lucius started snickering. "I think so too."

_**Out of the corner of his eye he saw the fluttering banner high above, flashing **__**Potter for President **__**over the crowd. His heart skipped. He felt braver.**_

"_**Mount your brooms, please."**_

_**Harry clambered onto his Nimbus Two Thousand.**_

_**Madam Hooch gave a loud blast on her silver whistle.**_

_**Fifteen brooms rose up, high, high into the air. They were off.**_

"_**And the Quaffle is taken immediately by Angelina Johnson of Gryffindor—what an excellent Chaser that girl is, and rather attractive, too—"**_

"_**JORDAN!"**_

"_**Sorry, Professor."**_

_**The Weasley twins' friend, Lee Jordan, was doing the commentary for the match, closely watched by Professor McGonagall.**_

"Lee is the best." Luna said.

"He does give the best commentaries." Harry agreed.

"_**And she's really belting along up there, a neat pass to Alicia**_

_**Spinnet, a good find of Oliver Wood's, last year only a reserve—back to Johnson and—no, the Slytherins have taken the Quaffle,**_

_**Slytherin Captain Marcus Flint gains the Quaffle and off he goes—Flint flying like an eagle up there—he's going to sc-no, stopped by an excellent move by Gryffindor Keeper Wood and the Gryffindors take the Quaffle—that's Chaser Katie Bell of**_

_**Gryffindor there, nice dive around Flint, off up the field and—OUCH—that must have hurt, hit in the back of the head by a**_

_**Bludger—Quaffle taken by the Slytherins—that's Adrian Pucey speeding off toward the goal posts, but he's blocked by a second**_

_**Bludger—sent his way by Fred or George Weasley, can't tell which—nice play by the Gryffindor Beater, anyway, and Johnson**_

_**back in possession of the Quaffle, a clear field ahead and off she goes—she's really flying—dodges a speeding Bludger—the goal posts are ahead—come on, now, Angelina—Keeper Bletchley dives—misses—GRYFFINDORS SCORE!"**_

_**Gryffindor cheers filled the cold air, with howls and moans from the Slytherins.**_

"_**Budge up there, move along."**_

"_**Hagrid!"**_

_**Ron and Hermione squeezed together to give Hagrid enough space to join them.**_

"_**Bin watchin' from me hut," said Hagrid, patting a large pair of binoculars around his neck, "But it isn't the same as bein' in the crowd. No sign of the Snitch yet, eh?"**_

"_**Nope," said Ron. "Harry hasn't had much to do yet."**_

"_**Kept outta trouble, though, that's somethin'," said Hagrid, raising his binoculars and peering skyward at the speck that was Harry.**_

_**Way up above them, Harry was gliding over the game, squinting about for some sign of the Snitch. This was part of his and Wood's game plan.**_

"_**Keep out of the way until you catch sight of the Snitch," Wood had said. "We don't want you attacked before you have to be."**_

_**When Angelina had scored, Harry had done a couple of loop the-loops to let off his feelings. Now he was back to staring around for the Snitch. Once he caught sight of a flash of gold, but it was just a reflection from one of the Weasleys' wristwatches, and once a Bludger decided to come pelting his way, more like a cannonball than anything, but Harry dodged it and Fred Weasley came chasing after it.**_

"_**All right there, Harry?" he had time to yell, as he beat the Bludger furiously toward Marcus Flint.**_

"_**Slytherin in possession," Lee Jordan was saying, "Chaser Pucey ducks two Bludgers, two Weasleys, and Chaser Bell, and speeds toward the—wait a moment—was that the Snitch?"**_

_**A murmur ran through the crowd as Adrian Pucey dropped the**_

_**Quaffle, too busy looking over his shoulder at the flash of gold that had passed his left ear.**_

_**Harry saw it. In a great rush of excitement he dived downward after the streak of gold. Slytherin Seeker Terence Higgs had seen it, too. Neck and neck they hurtled toward the Snitch—all the Chasers seemed to have forgotten what they were supposed to be doing as they hung in midair to watch.**_

_**Harry was faster than Higgs—he could see the little round ball, wings fluttering, darting up ahead—he put on an extra spurt of speed—**_

_**WHAM! A roar of rage echoed from the Gryffindors below —**_

_**Marcus Flint had blocked Harry on purpose, and Harry's broom spun off course, Harry holding on for dear life.**_

"_**Foul!" screamed the Gryffindors.**_

_**Madam Hooch spoke angrily to Flint and then ordered a free shot at the goal posts for Gryffindor. But in all the confusion, of course, the Golden Snitch had disappeared from sight again.**_

_**Down in the stands, Dean Thomas was yelling, "Send him off, ref! Red card!"**_

"What is he talking about?" Draco asked confused. Everyone just shook their heads, not knowing.

"_**What are you talking about, Dean?" said Ron.**_

"_**Red card!" said Dean furiously. "In soccer you get shown the red card and you're out of the game!"**_

"_**But this isn't soccer, Dean," Ron reminded him.**_

_**Hagrid, however, was on Dean's side.**_

"_**They oughta change the rules. Flint coulda knocked Harry**_

_**outta the air."**_

"That's probably what he was trying to do." Sirius said frowning.

_**Lee Jordan was finding it difficult not to take sides.**_

"_**So—after that obvious and disgusting bit of cheating—"**_

"_**Jordan!" growled Professor McGonagall.**_

"_**I mean, after that open and revolting foul—"**_

"_**Jordan, I'm warning you**__**—"**_

"_**All right, all right. Flint nearly kills the Gryffindor Seeker, which could happen to anyone, I'm sure, so a penalty to Gryffindor, taken by Spinnet, who puts it away, no trouble, and we continue play, Gryffindor still in possession."**_

_**It was as Harry dodged another Bludger, which went spinning dangerously past his head, that it happened. **_

Narcissa groaned. "What now?"

_**His broom gave a sudden, frightening lurch. For a split second, he thought he was going to fall. He gripped the broom tightly with both his hands and knees. He'd never felt anything like that.**_

_**It happened again. It was as though the broom was trying to buck him off. But Nimbus Two Thousands did not suddenly decide to buck their riders off. Harry tried to turn back toward the**_

_**Gryffindor goal posts—he had half a mind to ask Wood to call time-out—and then he realized that his broom was completely out of his control. He couldn't turn it. He couldn't direct it at all. It was zigzagging through the air, and every now and then making violent swishing movements that almost unseated him.**_

_**Lee was still commentating.**_

"No one noticed?!" Bellatrix asked incredulously, Harry just shrugged.

"_**Slytherin in possession—Flint with the Quaffle—passes**_

_**Spinnet—passes Bell—hit hard in the face by a Bludger, hope it broke his nose—only joking, Professor—Slytherins score—oh no..."**_

_**The Slytherins were cheering. No one seemed to have noticed that Harry's broom was behaving strangely it was carrying him slowly higher, away from the game, jerking and twitching as it went.**_

"_**Dunno what Harry thinks he's doing," Hagrid mumbled. He stared through his binoculars. "If I didn' know better, I'd say he'd lost control of his broom...but he can't have..."**_

_**Suddenly, people were pointing up at Harry all over the stands. His broom had started to roll over and over, with him only just managing to hold on. Then the whole crowd gasped. Harry's broom had given a wild jerk and Harry swung off it. He was now dangling from it, holding on with only one hand.**_

"_**Did something happen to it when Flint blocked him?" Seamus whispered.**_

"_**Can't have," Hagrid said, his voice shaking. "Can't nothing interfere with a broomstick except powerful Dark magic—no kid could do that to a Nimbus Two Thousand."**_

_**At these words, Hermione seized Hagrid's binoculars, but instead of looking up at Harry, she started looking frantically at the crowd.**_

"_**What are you doing?" moaned Ron, gray-faced.**_

"_**I knew it," Hermione gasped, "Snape—look."**_

Sirius opened his mouth and then closed it quickly again when he caught the glare Harry was giving him.

_**Ron grabbed the binoculars. Snape was in the middle of the stands opposite them. He had his eyes fixed on Harry and was muttering nonstop under his breath.**_

"_**He's doing something—jinxing the broom," said Hermione.**_

"_**What should we do?"**_

"_**Leave it to me."**_

Severus narrowed his eyes. "Tell me she didn't do what I think she did." Harry shrugged again snuggled closer to Draco, shaking slightly.

_**Before Ron could say another word, Hermione had disappeared.**_

_**Ron turned the binoculars back on Harry. His broom was vibrating so hard, it was almost impossible for him to hang on much longer. The whole crowd was on its feet, watching, terrified, as the Weasleys flew up to try and pull Harry safely onto one of their brooms, but it was no good — every time they got near him, the broom would jump higher still. They dropped lower and circled beneath him, obviously hoping to catch him if he fell. **_

Narcissa jumped up and grabbed the twins in a hug. "You sweet, sweet boys!"

_**Marcus Flint seized the Quaffle and scored five times without anyone noticing.**_

"_**Come on, Hermione," Ron muttered desperately.**_

_**Hermione had fought her way across to the stand where Snape stood, and was now racing along the row behind him; she didn't even stop to say sorry as she knocked Professor Quirrell headfirst into the row in front. Reaching Snape, she crouched down, pulled out her wand, and whispered a few, well-chosen words. Bright blue flames shot from her wand onto the hem of Snape's robes.**_

"She set me on fire!" Severus yelled, jumping up and Harry flinched into Draco.

"Sev, calm down." Remus said grabbing his hand.

"Yeah, you're upsetting Harry." Sirius whispered and Severus turned to see Harry wrapped up in Draco's arms, staring wide eyed at him.

"I'm sorry." Severus mumbled miserably and Harry just nodded.

_**It took perhaps thirty seconds for Snape to realize that he was on fire. A sudden yelp told her she had done her job. Scooping the fire off him into a little jar in her pocket, she scrambled back along the row—Snape would never know what had happened.**_

"I do now." He said with a gleam in his eyes that made Harry giggle.

_**It was enough. Up in the air, Harry was suddenly able to clamber back on to his broom.**_

"_**Neville, you can look!" Ron said. Neville had been sobbing into Hagrid's jacket for the last five minutes.**_

_**Harry was speeding toward the ground when the crowd saw him**_

_**clap his hand to his mouth as though he was about to be sick—he hit the field on all fours—coughed—and something gold fell into his hand.**_

"You ate the snitch?!" Sirius exclaimed, sounding both impressed and disgusted.

"_**I've got the Snitch!" he shouted, waving it above his head, and the game ended in complete confusion.**_

"_**He didn't **__**catch **__**it, he nearly **__**swallowed **__**it," Flint was still howling twenty minutes later, but it made no difference—Harry hadn't broken any rules and Lee Jordan was still happily shouting the results—Gryffindor had won by one hundred and seventy points to sixty. Harry heard none of this, though. He was being made a cup of strong tea back in Hagrid's hut, with Ron and Hermione.**_

"_**It was Snape," Ron was explaining, "Hermione and I saw him.**_

_**He was cursing your broomstick, muttering, he wouldn't take his eyes off you."**_

Severus scowled. "That doesn't make me guilty."

"We know." Remus said rubbing circles into Severus' hand with his thumb.

"_**Rubbish," said Hagrid, who hadn't heard a word of what had gone on next to him in the stands. "Why would Snape do somethin' like that?"**_

_**Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked at one another, wondering what to tell him. Harry decided on the truth.**_

"_**I found out something about him," he told Hagrid. "He tried to get past that three-headed dog on Halloween. It bit him. We think he was trying to steal whatever it's guarding."**_

_**Hagrid dropped the teapot.**_

"_**How do you know about Fluffy?" he said.**_

"Fluffy?!" Bellatrix exclaimed.

"Told you it was the cute or normal names you had to look out for." Harry shrugged again.

"_**Fluffy**__**?"**_

"_**Yeah—he's mine—bought him off a Greek chappie I met in the pub las' year—I lent him to Dumbledore to guard the—"**_

"_**Yes?" said Harry eagerly.**_

"_**Now, don't ask me anymore," said Hagrid gruffly. "That's top secret, that is."**_

"_**But Snape's trying to **__**steal **__**it."**_

"_**Rubbish," said Hagrid again. "Snape's a Hogwarts teacher, he'd do nothin' of the sort."**_

"_**So why did he just try and kill Harry?" cried Hermione.**_

_**The afternoon's events certainly seemed to have changed her mind about Snape.**_

"_**I know a jinx when I see one, Hagrid, I've read all about them! You've got to keep eye contact, and Snape wasn't blinking at all, I saw him!"**_

"It's the same for counter curses though." Tom pointed out.

"_**I'm tellin' yeh, yer wrong!" said Hagrid hotly. "I don' know why Harry's broom acted like that, but Snape wouldn' try an' kill a student! Now, listen to me, all three of yeh—yer meddlin' in things that don' concern yeh. It's dangerous. You forget that dog, an' you forget what it's guardin', that's between Professor Dumbledore an' Nicolas Flamel—"**_

"Oh Hagrid..." Remus said shaking his head.

"_**Aha!" said Harry, "so there's someone called Nicolas Flamel involved, is there?"**_

_**Hagrid looked furious with himself.**_

"That's the end." Bellatrix said.

"And that's five." Harry added. "So let's eat!"


End file.
